Blog: Corrigan Responds to Kucinich "Endorsement"

Statement

The Plain Dealer still not interested in an interview

We were disappointed to learn that the Plain Dealer endorsed Dennis Kucinich. However, this was not entirely unexpected, and it helps explain some of the media silence on my race.

In the nine months of campaigning, and estimating more than 40 contacts with the newspaper, the Plain Dealer News Staff has yet to even request an interview to understand my background or my positions. I have answered questions to reporters exactly twice, each for less than two minutes, and for the first three months, they were not even citing my name correctly.

I have come to understand this as typical of the PD. However, this is a Congressional campaign, which carries much more significance than local races. I find it remarkably irresponsible for the PD News Staff to ignore the major candidates in many of the Congressional races. Instead, they are spending time on safe topics such as David Ellison, the Green Candidate and a nice man, who is likely to collect less than 5,000 votes for the County Council Executive position.

The Plain Dealer has earned a reputation for keeping the status quo. For ten years, as county corruption festered in the city, the paper was silent. Either from a lack of resource, or a fear to report what was really happening, it took an FBI investigation for this paper to finally wake up and start reporting. Sadly, they missed the boat for many years while our city declined. During this time, the paper endorsed Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo, and others involved in various corruption schemes, while reporting that Dennis Kucinich praised Dimora as "the backbone of the County Democratic Party". Perhaps, in retrospect, the Plain Dealer endorsement is something that we should really have been relieved to have missed.

Kucinich's efforts, used as justification for the endorsement, are weak at best. As a U.S. "Councilman', he does a good job of helping constituents with problems, just as any city councilman would do. As U.S. Congressman, he neglects the ongoing deterioration and economic chaos in the city and country, and he lacks a real turnaround plan for Cleveland. His efforts, as relayed to me by insiders at Hugo Boss and Alcoa, are superficial at best and non-existent at worst. And his "daily efforts" at NASA have netted lost jobs at the Glenn Research Center as well. He is not the turnaround candidate, he is the status quo.

I have met Susan Goldberg, Betsy Sullivan, Joe Frolik, and Kevin O'Brien and I have come to like each of them personally. As the Editorial Board, they are different than the News Staff, although they are using inputs from the News Staff to help them endorse. I respect that they are trying to do the job. But I believe that they got this one very wrong. In November, the voters will have their say.

Peter J. Corrigan

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