I happen to know both Richard Cordray and Mike Dewine. Until November 2016, I would say that I had more interaction with Richard than Mike over time, but once simply act of kindness from Mike to my family changed permanently, and in a positive way what I think about Mike Dewine, the man and the father -- not necessarily the politician.
My friendship with Mike is relatively new, and I feel a little strange calling him a friend, but he is certainly more than an acquaintance, because of one very telling personal interaction he had with me in the weeks after the election night in 2016. Although I had been acquainted with Mike and had been a visitor at his house with other supporters on the 4th of July, 1991, it wasn't until just after Thanksgiving, 2016, that I truly appreciated Mike DeWine, the man and the father of a child who departed this Earth before her time.
To set the stage, I was part of the team of lawyers and Republican activists in Columbus on election day in 2016 who were policing the election to make sure that election laws were not being violated by the other side during the Presidential general election. While I was at the table taking calls, in walks Attorney General Mike DeWine and I, wearing my Texas Lone Star shirt that I wore to the National Republican Convention as a Delegate from Texas (and, of course, my Stetson), went over and reintroduced myself to Mike. I think he actually remembered me from the 1990s when I did a little work as part of his issues team on his Senate campaign, Clearly, this Texan would not be of any use to Mike, but he didn't treat me that way, and after a few minutes of an exchange of pleasantries, I made sure that I didn't burn up the time he had to speak to those who could actually be of use to him politically in Ohio. I went back to my phone, and didn't really think anything more of it, until that evening, when I ran into Mike and his wife, Fran, at the election watch party in downtown Columbus. I learned about their son Patrick's success in his Ohio Supreme Court race that evening, and I had a chance to talk to Mike about my daughter, Emily, who was in hospice care as a result of the ravages of Juvenile Batten Disease and a severe bout of double pneumonia with an ultra-high (107.3 degree high) fever. Mike sensed my worry and concern about Emily, and told me to contact him if he could ever do anything for me. I gave him my card, and he put it in his pocket. Being cynical about politicians (after all, I have been one here in Texas), I was fairly certain I would never hear from him. I have never been more wrong about someone, and I should have known better, as the Mike DeWine I sorta knew never gave me any reason to doubt his sincerity or interest in me as a fellow human being.
When I returned home from Columbus to Texas, Emily was not in very good shape, and I didn't go into my office to pick up the mail until after Thanksgiving. When I did, I was surprised to see a card from Cedarville, Ohio, which could only have been from Mike DeWine. Again, I am embarrassed now to say that my first thought as I was opening the card was that I was certain that is was a solicitation and that Mike hadn't wasted any time soliciting a donation from me. How far from the truth that was! Inside the envelope was a handwritten card from Mike, reiterating his interest in me and my family, and providing me with his cell phone number. I didn't know until he announced for Governor that he had lost a child, a daughter, in a car accident many years' ago, and how profoundly that affected Mike, Fran and the entire DeWine family. It was when I read the report of his announcement that it finally clicked with me: Mike DeWine, the man, not the politician, had extended a helping hand to a another father who was going to have to bury a child before her time. He will never know how that one simple act of kindness, with no prospect of a return gesture other than a simple thanks -- which I most assuredly did -- sustained me through Emily's deterioration through this day, and will continue to sustain me when I say my final goodbye to her.
So, it is not for political reasons that I support Mike DeWine. It is for friendship and for the brotherly love he extended to me when I was in need of support from an unexpected source. Win or lose -- and I do hope he wins --- Mike DeWine will go down in my family history as the man who cared about his fellow man when he didn't have to, and at the time when we needed it most. Wouldn't it be nice if all of our public servants were this human! Mike will make a fine governor if the voters in Ohio give him the chance.
Good Luck Attorney General Mike DeWine. God Bless You and God Bless the Voters of Ohio.
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Some thoughts about Mike DeWine and Richard Cordray, and why I support Mike over Richard for Governor
I hope to get back to Ohio to live someday soon and vote again in the State's elections. I haven't lived in Ohio since 1995, when I worked in Cleveland for the international mega-law firm of Jones Day. Until this election cycle, I could not figure out why I missed the state of my birth so much. Yes, my parents are still kicking in their late 80s in the Columbus area, and my sister and her kids are there too, but as much as I do miss my family, that is not the biggest reason I miss Ohio. The truth is, I miss Ohio politics, with all of its warts and rhetorical warfare. Sure we have politics in Texas, but it is a whole different game than politics in Ohio. The wars here are fought mainly in the GOP primaries where candidates seek to out do their opponents as to who is the most conservative and in the Democratic primaries where the primary winner, if he or she even has an opponent, has been hand picked by the state and national party apparatus because of their in-your-face liberal credentials. Not so in Ohio.
Indeed, I think Ohio, at least in the Governor's race, is holding an election between individuals who are, for the most part, backed by their respective parties, not partisan hacks. Neither Mike DeWine nor Richard Cordray were hand-picked, and while they court the support of their respective party's leaders and luminaries, they are true old-school politicians that are public servants, faithfully pushing whatever is left over of their respective party's middle ground to gain your vote on election day, no matter your party. They both have been in Ohio politics long enough to know that Ohioans still tend to vote for the man (or woman) and not the party on election day. At least it seems that way to me.
I having been watching this battle in Ohio from my perch in Texas and with the perspective of having known Richard from as far back as when we attended rival high schools, and Mike from when he was running for the U.S. Senate and I was working at the Ohio Supreme Court as a law clerk for the now late Justice Craig Wright. In high school, I was part of a quiz bowl team that competed on a local television program called "In the Know." Richard's high school, Grove City High School, and my high school, Upper Arlington High School, would play mock rounds of In the Know during the summer as a "scrimmage" for the season ahead. I was an alternate on the team, but actually got on the program when one of the team members became too sick with mono to play that evening. Who was the team we played? Grove City High School, anchored by no other than future Jeopardy champion, Richard Cordray. And Richard single-handedly decimated our team. It has been 42 years' ago since that fateful match. I don't remember (and don't want to remember) the score, but it was a good old-fashioned whuppin upon us. I do remember that I only got one question that evening, and it required me to identify who Kal-El's son was. For those of you who don't know this incredibly important piece of trivia, the answer is Superman. So, I was able to display my incredible brilliance by identifying a comic book character. Whoopee. I consoled myself with the fact that I beat Richard to the buzzer on at that one question.
So, we all hated Richard after that evening, but we also admired his sheer intellect (as least for trivia). I think we all knew Richard would be going somewhere in the future. Anything was possible in my mind -- astronaut, nobel prize winning scientist, well-respected economist -- and I confess, I was a little disappointed when I read an article shortly after the In the Know season ended where Richard was quoted as saying he was going to run for President of the United States some day. I haven't found a copy of the article from the late 70s in the Columbus Dispatch, but I remember clearly being amazed at his ambition and chutzpah. The most my ego could muster was to predict in my high school yearbook that I would become a computer lawyer, which I ended up doing, without really knowing what a computer lawyer would be at the time I became one. But then again, unlike Richard, I could only answer a single comic book character question, so I really wasn't entitled to haven't such lofty ambitions as those of Richard Cordray. Don't get me wrong -- I know I can be egotistical too, I just have perhaps less of a justification to do so. I know Richard Cordray, and I am no Richard Cordray! And I am OK with that.
Richard and I ran into each other many years later when we both ended up working at Jones Day, Cleveland, at the same time. When we did, I got the sense that Richard really didn't feel any common bond to me -- I was not of the elite class of lawyers who clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court, a class that includes not only Richard and Justice Cavanaugh, but Ted Cruz and Laura Ingraham, and a slew of judges, including Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Breyer, Kagan and Gorsuch. I don't want to call Richard arrogant -- I think he is more aloof than arrogant -- and he may well have changed over the past 20 plus years since my stint at Jones Day, but I will say that he never left me with an impression that he was in any way concerned with anything that was not on his well-chartered path of political success. I was not of any use to him, therefore I didn't exist in any meaningful way in his world Ted Cruz is also a little bit this way, but Ted always greets me as if he remembers me from the campaign stump here in Texas in days gone by. I have to believe that when you are as brilliant and driven as Richard and Ted, maybe you suffer a little deficit in emotional intelligence, a little less empathy for your fellow human being, because you simply don't have the time to do that and be successful. At time, I wish I were that disciplined, but on balance, I am OK with a less disciplined approach to life if it includes times for others that need it.
Politically, Richard has been on the same side in the past on some issues I care about -- term limits and line item Presidential veto power, and there is one where I agree with him over Mike DeWine. And there are a few issues where the two of them agree. So, my main reason for not supporting Richard over Mike is not mainly political. It is that Mike is not always about Mike, but Richard seems to be always about, well, Richard. I never get a sense that Richard is as committed to the issues he champions as much as he seeks to portray his commitment to the voters. If were voting, Richard would not get my vote because of the nagging feeling that he wants to be Governor so that he will someday be President of the United States. I would want a Governor who is all in for my state, and does not have such long standing (forty-plus years) ambition to be President. Richard is a decent guy, just a little too distant and ambitious for my taste.
So, let me now contrast my friend Mike DeWine. My friendship with Mike is relatively new, and I feel a little strange calling him a friend, but he is certainly more than an acquaintance, because of one very telling personal interaction he had with me in the weeks after the election night in 2016. Although I had been acquainted with Mike and had been a visitor at his house with other supporters on the 4th of July, 1991, it wasn't until just after Thanksgiving, 2016, that I truly appreciated Mike DeWine, the man and the father of a child who departed this Earth before her time.
To set the stage, I was part of the team of lawyers and Republican activists in Columbus on election day in 2016 who were policing the election to make sure that election laws were not being violated by the other side during the Presidential general election. While I was at the table taking calls, in walks Attorney General Mike DeWine and I, wearing my Texas Lone Star shirt that I wore to the National Republican Convention as a Delegate from Texas (and, of course, my Stetson), went over and reintroduced myself to Mike. I think he actually remembered me from the 1990s when I did a little work as part of his issues team on his Senate campaign, Clearly, this Texan would not be of any use to Mike, but he didn't treat me that way, and after a few minutes of an exchange of pleasantries, I made sure that I didn't burn up the time he had to speak to those who could actually be of use to him politically in Ohio. I went back to my phone, and didn't really think anything more of it, until that evening, when I ran into Mike and his wife, Fran, at the election watch party in downtown Columbus. I learned about their son Patrick's success in his Ohio Supreme Court race that evening, and I had a chance to talk to Mike about my daughter, Emily, who was in hospice care as a result of the ravages of Juvenile Batten Disease and a severe bout of double pneumonia with an ultra-high (107.3 degree high) fever. Mike sensed my worry and concern about Emily, and told me to contact him if he could ever do anything for me. I gave him my card, and he put it in his pocket. Being cynical about politicians (after all, I have been one here in Texas), I was fairly certain I would never hear from him. I have never been more wrong about someone, and I should have known better, as the Mike DeWine I sorta knew never gave me any reason to doubt his sincerity or interest in me as a fellow human being.
When I returned home from Columbus to Texas, Emily was not in very good shape, and I didn't go into my office to pick up the mail until after Thanksgiving. When I did, I was surprised to see a card from Cedarville, Ohio, which could only have been from Mike DeWine. Again, I am embarrassed now to say that my first thought as I was opening the card was that I was certain that is was a solicitation and that Mike hadn't wasted any time soliciting a donation from me. How far from the truth that was! Inside the envelope was a handwritten card from Mike, reiterating his interest in me and my family, and providing me with his cell phone number. I didn't know until he announced for Governor that he had lost a child, a daughter, in a car accident many years' ago, and how profoundly that affected Mike, Fran and the entire DeWine family. It was when I read the report of his announcement that it finally clicked with me: Mike DeWine, the man, not the politician, had extended a helping hand to a another father who was going to have to bury a child before her time. He will never know how that one simple act of kindness, with no prospect of a return gesture other than a simple thanks -- which I most assuredly did -- sustained me through Emily's deterioration through this day, and will continue to sustain me when I say my final goodbye to her.
So, it is not for political reasons that I support Mike DeWine. It is for friendship and for the brotherly love he extended to me when I was in need of support from an unexpected source. Win or lose -- and I do hope he wins --- Mike DeWine will go down in my family history as the man who cared about his fellow man when he didn't have to, and at the time when we needed it most. Wouldn't it be nice if all of our public servants were this human! Mike will make a fine governor if the voters in Ohio give him the chance.
Good Luck Attorney General Mike DeWine. God Bless You and God Bless the Voters of Ohio.
Indeed, I think Ohio, at least in the Governor's race, is holding an election between individuals who are, for the most part, backed by their respective parties, not partisan hacks. Neither Mike DeWine nor Richard Cordray were hand-picked, and while they court the support of their respective party's leaders and luminaries, they are true old-school politicians that are public servants, faithfully pushing whatever is left over of their respective party's middle ground to gain your vote on election day, no matter your party. They both have been in Ohio politics long enough to know that Ohioans still tend to vote for the man (or woman) and not the party on election day. At least it seems that way to me.
I having been watching this battle in Ohio from my perch in Texas and with the perspective of having known Richard from as far back as when we attended rival high schools, and Mike from when he was running for the U.S. Senate and I was working at the Ohio Supreme Court as a law clerk for the now late Justice Craig Wright. In high school, I was part of a quiz bowl team that competed on a local television program called "In the Know." Richard's high school, Grove City High School, and my high school, Upper Arlington High School, would play mock rounds of In the Know during the summer as a "scrimmage" for the season ahead. I was an alternate on the team, but actually got on the program when one of the team members became too sick with mono to play that evening. Who was the team we played? Grove City High School, anchored by no other than future Jeopardy champion, Richard Cordray. And Richard single-handedly decimated our team. It has been 42 years' ago since that fateful match. I don't remember (and don't want to remember) the score, but it was a good old-fashioned whuppin upon us. I do remember that I only got one question that evening, and it required me to identify who Kal-El's son was. For those of you who don't know this incredibly important piece of trivia, the answer is Superman. So, I was able to display my incredible brilliance by identifying a comic book character. Whoopee. I consoled myself with the fact that I beat Richard to the buzzer on at that one question.
So, we all hated Richard after that evening, but we also admired his sheer intellect (as least for trivia). I think we all knew Richard would be going somewhere in the future. Anything was possible in my mind -- astronaut, nobel prize winning scientist, well-respected economist -- and I confess, I was a little disappointed when I read an article shortly after the In the Know season ended where Richard was quoted as saying he was going to run for President of the United States some day. I haven't found a copy of the article from the late 70s in the Columbus Dispatch, but I remember clearly being amazed at his ambition and chutzpah. The most my ego could muster was to predict in my high school yearbook that I would become a computer lawyer, which I ended up doing, without really knowing what a computer lawyer would be at the time I became one. But then again, unlike Richard, I could only answer a single comic book character question, so I really wasn't entitled to haven't such lofty ambitions as those of Richard Cordray. Don't get me wrong -- I know I can be egotistical too, I just have perhaps less of a justification to do so. I know Richard Cordray, and I am no Richard Cordray! And I am OK with that.
Richard and I ran into each other many years later when we both ended up working at Jones Day, Cleveland, at the same time. When we did, I got the sense that Richard really didn't feel any common bond to me -- I was not of the elite class of lawyers who clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court, a class that includes not only Richard and Justice Cavanaugh, but Ted Cruz and Laura Ingraham, and a slew of judges, including Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Breyer, Kagan and Gorsuch. I don't want to call Richard arrogant -- I think he is more aloof than arrogant -- and he may well have changed over the past 20 plus years since my stint at Jones Day, but I will say that he never left me with an impression that he was in any way concerned with anything that was not on his well-chartered path of political success. I was not of any use to him, therefore I didn't exist in any meaningful way in his world Ted Cruz is also a little bit this way, but Ted always greets me as if he remembers me from the campaign stump here in Texas in days gone by. I have to believe that when you are as brilliant and driven as Richard and Ted, maybe you suffer a little deficit in emotional intelligence, a little less empathy for your fellow human being, because you simply don't have the time to do that and be successful. At time, I wish I were that disciplined, but on balance, I am OK with a less disciplined approach to life if it includes times for others that need it.
Politically, Richard has been on the same side in the past on some issues I care about -- term limits and line item Presidential veto power, and there is one where I agree with him over Mike DeWine. And there are a few issues where the two of them agree. So, my main reason for not supporting Richard over Mike is not mainly political. It is that Mike is not always about Mike, but Richard seems to be always about, well, Richard. I never get a sense that Richard is as committed to the issues he champions as much as he seeks to portray his commitment to the voters. If were voting, Richard would not get my vote because of the nagging feeling that he wants to be Governor so that he will someday be President of the United States. I would want a Governor who is all in for my state, and does not have such long standing (forty-plus years) ambition to be President. Richard is a decent guy, just a little too distant and ambitious for my taste.
So, let me now contrast my friend Mike DeWine. My friendship with Mike is relatively new, and I feel a little strange calling him a friend, but he is certainly more than an acquaintance, because of one very telling personal interaction he had with me in the weeks after the election night in 2016. Although I had been acquainted with Mike and had been a visitor at his house with other supporters on the 4th of July, 1991, it wasn't until just after Thanksgiving, 2016, that I truly appreciated Mike DeWine, the man and the father of a child who departed this Earth before her time.
To set the stage, I was part of the team of lawyers and Republican activists in Columbus on election day in 2016 who were policing the election to make sure that election laws were not being violated by the other side during the Presidential general election. While I was at the table taking calls, in walks Attorney General Mike DeWine and I, wearing my Texas Lone Star shirt that I wore to the National Republican Convention as a Delegate from Texas (and, of course, my Stetson), went over and reintroduced myself to Mike. I think he actually remembered me from the 1990s when I did a little work as part of his issues team on his Senate campaign, Clearly, this Texan would not be of any use to Mike, but he didn't treat me that way, and after a few minutes of an exchange of pleasantries, I made sure that I didn't burn up the time he had to speak to those who could actually be of use to him politically in Ohio. I went back to my phone, and didn't really think anything more of it, until that evening, when I ran into Mike and his wife, Fran, at the election watch party in downtown Columbus. I learned about their son Patrick's success in his Ohio Supreme Court race that evening, and I had a chance to talk to Mike about my daughter, Emily, who was in hospice care as a result of the ravages of Juvenile Batten Disease and a severe bout of double pneumonia with an ultra-high (107.3 degree high) fever. Mike sensed my worry and concern about Emily, and told me to contact him if he could ever do anything for me. I gave him my card, and he put it in his pocket. Being cynical about politicians (after all, I have been one here in Texas), I was fairly certain I would never hear from him. I have never been more wrong about someone, and I should have known better, as the Mike DeWine I sorta knew never gave me any reason to doubt his sincerity or interest in me as a fellow human being.
When I returned home from Columbus to Texas, Emily was not in very good shape, and I didn't go into my office to pick up the mail until after Thanksgiving. When I did, I was surprised to see a card from Cedarville, Ohio, which could only have been from Mike DeWine. Again, I am embarrassed now to say that my first thought as I was opening the card was that I was certain that is was a solicitation and that Mike hadn't wasted any time soliciting a donation from me. How far from the truth that was! Inside the envelope was a handwritten card from Mike, reiterating his interest in me and my family, and providing me with his cell phone number. I didn't know until he announced for Governor that he had lost a child, a daughter, in a car accident many years' ago, and how profoundly that affected Mike, Fran and the entire DeWine family. It was when I read the report of his announcement that it finally clicked with me: Mike DeWine, the man, not the politician, had extended a helping hand to a another father who was going to have to bury a child before her time. He will never know how that one simple act of kindness, with no prospect of a return gesture other than a simple thanks -- which I most assuredly did -- sustained me through Emily's deterioration through this day, and will continue to sustain me when I say my final goodbye to her.
So, it is not for political reasons that I support Mike DeWine. It is for friendship and for the brotherly love he extended to me when I was in need of support from an unexpected source. Win or lose -- and I do hope he wins --- Mike DeWine will go down in my family history as the man who cared about his fellow man when he didn't have to, and at the time when we needed it most. Wouldn't it be nice if all of our public servants were this human! Mike will make a fine governor if the voters in Ohio give him the chance.
Good Luck Attorney General Mike DeWine. God Bless You and God Bless the Voters of Ohio.
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