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Kucinich will face the squeeze in 2012
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Candidate
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| Contributor | Craverguy |
| Last Edited | Craverguy Nov 24, 2010 04:28pm |
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| Category | Analysis |
| Author | Brent Larkin |
| News Date | Saturday, November 13, 2010 11:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Here's what to expect:
The 1965 federal Voting Rights Act requires the legislature to make a good-faith effort to draw a district that keeps Greater Cleveland's large black population in a single district. That's good for Fudge, who is black. And the only way to make that good-faith effort is to expand her district to include most or all of Cleveland's West Side, which has a growing black and Hispanic population.
Sutton's district now includes just a sliver of Cuyahoga County. But her new district is likely to creep deeper into the county, encompassing more of the western and southwestern suburbs. As Sutton's dismantling of Republican car dealer Tom Ganley showed on Nov. 2, her present territory is Democrat-friendly. The new district probably would be less so.
Caught in the middle would be Kucinich, victim of a classic political squeeze.
And that would require him to make a gigantic political decision. Does he stay put and run in the Democratic primary against Fudge in a new district that contains a sizable -- perhaps a majority -- minority population? Or does he take on Sutton in a new district that contains no, or precious few, Cleveland voters?
Ironically, 40 years ago, Kucinich faced that very same dilemma. In 1969, he was elected to City Council representing the Tremont neighborhood. But new boundaries drawn for the 1971 council elections saw Kucinich's ward carved into three pieces.
Kucinich opted to move west, running in a new ward in the neighborhood surrounding Halloran Park near West 117th Street and Lorain Avenue. He won easily.
"It's always an honor to serve and I will serve wherever I have a district," Kucinich said last week. "I don't have any control over what happens, so I'm not going to worry about it." |
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