HOW WILL HEALY "SPIN" THIS ONE?
The Stark County Political Report has learned that likely today a mailer to some 4500 Canton households will be showing up at home of "likely to vote" Cantonians that reportedly will be making a very, very serious allegation regarding Canton mayor William J. Healy, II.
If the mailer materializes (The Report is told that it was mailed on Friday), the SCPR thinks it will move the political vitriol of the campaign for mayor of Canton to the highest possible level.
THE BACKGROUND
With a continuing political life of William J. Healy, II as mayor of Canton being on the line, it should be no surprise that "the knock down, drag out" nature the challenge of Stark County commissioner and former Healy service director/chief of staff Thomas M. Bernabei has been ratcheting up notch after notch after notch especially since the October 15th radio debate (See video as this LINK) between the two.
Here is a copy of a particularly nasty ad (which smacks of being "despearation" campaign literature) put out by the Healy forces within the past few days:
One of Bernabei's principal political attacks on Mayor Healy has been to put his honesty and integrity in heightened question
Go figure! then that Healy and his political adviser(s) would try to turn tables on Bernabei who is generally held in very high ethical regard even by those (e.g. Stark Dems' chairman Phil Giavasis) who are extremely unhappy that former Democrat Bernabei is challenging an incumbent Democratic mayor of Ohio's eight largest city seeking a third term.
The Report has known that there was "bad blood" between Bernabei and Healy since Healy fired Bernabei from his first administration in January, 2009.
If the animosity was not generally known before, it became abundantly and publicly clear in the above-referenced radio debate.
The SCPR believes that those who were not committed to one candidate or another and in attendance at the debate at Canton Grand McKinley hotel came away thinking the debate was pretty much a tie.
Yours truly does.
Only if one is a political Kool Aid drinker as mixed up by either the Bernabei or Healy's campaign officials, could one think that either candidate was a clear winner.
That was not the case the night before in Massillon the night before at Massillon's historic Lincoln Theater in which Republican Lee Brunckhart clearly bested incumbent Democrat mayor Kathy Catazaro-Perry and newly "independent" and former 24 year former Democratic Francis H. Cicchinelli.
THE DESARIO FACTOR
A common component of both races in Mount Union University political science professor and political consultant Jack DeSario.
DeSario is a key factor in the political management of both the Healy and Cicchinelli campaigns.
The SCPR posted the foregoing blog, of course, on February 17, 2009.
The foregoing graphic was inserted into a May 4, 2015 blog (LINK, ironically, the day Bernabei filed with the Stark County Board of Elections [BOE] to run against DeSario client Healy) showing that Healy had paid DeSario $26,000 in his Democratic primary race challenge from Canton treasurer Kim Perez.
Also, in Healy's latest campaign finance report:
A day or two or so after the May 4th blog, DeSario telephone The Report to complain about the use of the word G*df**th*r.
He told yours truly how offensive the use of such a word could be to someone of Italian heritage like himself.
To The Report, his sensitivity was quite a stretch and was more an expression of dissatisfaction of the continuing stream, going back nearly to the beginning of Healy's first administration, of blogs which have been highly critical of the mayor's handling of Canton's chief executive responsibilities.
Actually, as yours truly explained to DeSario, the use of word was intended as a tribute to the guru quality of his highly sought out political campaign advice.
Readers of the SCPR know that Healy is not the only Stark County politician that have been a continuing target of The Report's criticism.
Accordingly, in deference to DeSario's professed sensitivity to the use of the word G*df**th*r hereby resolves to abandon the use of the word in describing DeSario's political sophistication as a campaign political consultant.
In a word, The Report thinks that DeSario's complaint was disingenuous at best.
As was, The Report thinks, this communication by DeSario's wife after the October 15th radio debate, to wit:
- Note: (as to this part of her e-mail "[And even though Jack is politically involved, this is solely my opinion. He is too busy right now to even know that I am writing to you].
To: tramols@att.net
I am outraged by your comment that it appeared that everyone in attendance at the Mayoral debate thought it was a tie. I want to know exactly how you know what everyone thought. Were you watching ever single person's reaction? No, I was sitting right behind you and your focus was on your camera, not the audience. Did you poll the audience? No, because I went up and spoke to you and you didn't ask me what I thought. What gives you the right to speak for an entire audience? I actually have proof that your statement is incorrect. About 15 of those in attendance actually called my house or were present in my house and said that Mayor Healy was the clear winner. One person, who is not affiliated with Mayor Healy in any way, said Bernebei was so bad that they should have cut the debate short. One said he was embarrassed for Bernebei. Two said that Bernebei sounded old and confused. And the person sitting next to me and I couldn't get over how poorly Bernebei did. And I was quite vocal in my opinion. So clearly your statement that "it appeared that everyone in attendance thought it was a tie" is incorrect. So again I ask you, what gives you the right to speak for 50 people? You should print a correction and say that you are speaking solely from your own opinion.
Mary Jo DeSario.
(And even though Jack is politically involved, this is solely my opinion. He is too busy right now to even know that I am writing to you).
Sent from my iPad
As everybody knows who reads the SCPR, yours truly is good to publish e-mails, letters, videos wherein those who disagree with The Report are pretty much given unfettered opportunity to respond.
Certainly, the DeSarios know this.
And being the politically crafty person Jack DeSario is, it is likely (the SCPR thinks) that the e-mail was part of a plan to get space to rebutt The Report's take on the take away by the relatively few folks not committed to either campaign.
To repeat, The Report's response Mary Jo DeSario is quite simple: Only the Kool Aid drinkers (or those with a clear self/family-interest bias) on either side of the Bernabei/Healy match up could walk away thinking that either was a decided victor.
Undoubtedly, Mrs. DeSario thought yours truly was going to bury her objection.
Not at all.
The Report was only waiting for an appropriate context to publish her retort.
And, of course, yours truly is complimented that Mary Jo and/or Jack DeSario even care what the SCPR thinks.
As has been seen in a number of articles published of late in The Repository and the SCPR, it is obvious that both Healy and Bernabei had both their good moments and their bad moments in making their respective cases for election one week from today.
There was no clear winner.
Unless, of course, one is a true believer in either campaign.
TODAY, "THE NIGHTMARE IN THE HEALY CAMP?"
Coming full circle from the opening paragraph of today's blog, the SCPR thinks that when it dawns on the insider Healy campaign group beginning with today's mail that third parties have injected themselves into this highly charged campaign with a mailer making some very serious allegations on the mayor in very late October (only one week before final voting takes place on November 3rd), there is likely to be an Mount Everest reaction generated by the political consultant guru who also is a Mount Union University based political science professor who has a Ph.D in political science.
The Report has been promised a copy of the mailer once the author has confirmation of its receipt by one of the 4500 Canton household to which it is said to have been mailed.
Stay tuned folks!
As yours truly told a local reporter at last night's Canton City Council meeting last night, the next week is likely to be a very turbulent political week in the annals of Canton politics.
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