An endorsement, of sorts, of David Esrati for Congress

If you’ve visited my site before, you may have seen mention of David Esrati; if you’ve visited Esrati.com, you may have seen comments I’ve made on his posts (he allows comments, I do not, choices that as bloggers we’re each free to make). A short bio of David Esrati, for those who don’t know, is that he’s a small business owner in Dayton, a neighborhood activist and a perennial candidate for public office. That last bit, running for office, might be what he’s most well known for, and he likes it so much that this year he’s run for the position of Congressman representing Ohio’s 3rd District twice. You wouldn’t think it possible to run for the same office twice in the same year, but Esrati’s managed it. The first time he got only as far as gathering enough signatures on petitions to qualify to run but failing to follow all the rules for filling the petitions. Dr. Mark A. MacNealy, the only Democrat who did manage to run in the OH-3 Democratic primary and who therefore won unopposed, decided for some unspecified “change in circumstances” to withdraw from the race, thus giving Esrati a second chance. This time around Esrati was very careful with his petitions, videotaping each person who signed them, a step that was in part a somewhat gimmicky way to garner some publicity but was also a safeguard against the possibility of the Montgomery County Board of Elections* being nitpicky about technicalities. I was one of the people who signed Esrati’s petitions this time. If your candidate can’t beat David Esrati, there’s no way he can beat Mike Turner Why, you might ask, would I want someone who couldn’t get it right the first time to have another chance? Well, a very basic reason is that we’re going to have a primary anyway—by dropping out more than 40 days before the general election in November, MacNealy triggered the expense of a special primary no matter how many people run, just as we had to have the first primary even though MacNealy was unopposed. Since there’s going to be a primary, we might as well take this time to get to know the candidates better and give them, especially whoever wins, a chance to build up some name recognition. Even if you prefer one of the other choices (besides Esrati in this special primary are MacNealy’s campaign manager, Joe Roberts, and another guy, Guy Fogle), if your candidate can’t beat David Esrati, there’s no way he can beat Mike Turner.

Esrati is good on gay rights A more important reason why I have voted for Esrati in the past and intend to do so again this time is that I’m a single issue (if you have to guess which one, you obviously don’t know me) voter and Esrati has taken the right stand on the issue that’s important to me. I don’t care how good a candidate is on other issues if that candidate takes the wrong stand on my issue. Esrati oppposes discrimination based on sexual orientation, is for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and he supports equal marriage rights**. Mike Turner’s taken the wrong stand on my issue in the past as Mayor of Dayton and continues to do so as Congressman. Turner thinks discrimination based on sexual orientation should be legal, he thinks that the government should waste money kicking out needed service members if those service members are queer, and Turner thinks that letting queers marry is such a threat to the American family that the U.S. Constitution should be amended to ban gay marriage. I don’t care how good Turner may be on other issues such as predatory lending; he’s never, ever going to get my vote. Esrati is accessible to voters I understand that most voters do not make decisions on the basis of a single issue, and if that’s true for you, you may well still find that you like Esrati’s positions on other issues. Visit Esrati.com, and you’ll see that Esrati’s written plenty about what he thinks about a lot of issues. Plus you can watch lots of video of Esrati speaking about what he thinks. Care about a particular issue and wonder what Esrati’s take on it is? Go to his site and post a question, or send him an e-mail. Esrati isn’t shielded behind a savvy political staff; he’ll answer your questions directly. Esrati is not politics as usual If you take a look at Esrati’s opponents’ websites—robertsforohio.com and guyfogleforcongress.com—you won’t find that same level of exposure and involvement. Roberts’s and Fogle’s sites are prettier than Esrati’s but also pretty uninformative about where they stand. That may actually be good in terms of being electable, but it’s also discouragingly business as usual. Frankly, I don’t give any of the three choices, Roberts, Fogel or Esrati, much chance of beating Mike Turner, but for me that’s a reason to go ahead and vote for someone good on my issue and different from play-it-safe politicians. Esrati makes his opponents more accountable Not only did I sign Esrati’s petition to get on the ballot, but I also decided to donate a small amount of money. I also did so during his last city commission race. I hadn’t actually planned on doing so this time around but thought about it some more and changed my mind. Donating to Elect Esrati isn’t really a bet that he’ll win but instead is a small investment in some transparency and openness in the election process. Esrati posts not only his own campaign finance reports but also those of his opponents. By running for Congress, David Esrati makes his opponents, both in this special primary and in November’s general election, more accountable. David Esrati may be crazy, he may be annoying, he may be unelectable, but he’s got integrity, he tries to make his actions match his words, and he offers something to the voters of OH-3.

*A nitpick I have with the Montgomery County Board of Elections website (apart from the nitpick Esrati has which is that they don’t provide the forms online that a candidate needs to run) is that if you try going to mcboe.org (no “www.” in front), you’ll land on the Montgomery County website, not the Board of Elections site, which you can get to only if you remember to include the “www.” (www.mcboe.org). This DNS laziness also affects the Montgomery County Treasurer’s real estate site (mctreas.org instead of www.mctreas.org), and I’ve tried to point it out to the Montgomery County webmaster, to no avail.

**Having written written before about some interesting Google queries that have brought people to my website, I know that one I’ll get will be whether David Esrati is gay. Actually, I just checked (not about his being gay, silly), and even before my having written this post, somebody just last month came to my site having googled “David Esrati gay.” It’s difficult to prove a negative, and sure, there are lots of queers who’ve been heterosexually married, had opposite sex boyfriends or girlfriends, etc., but I’ve met David Esrati’s girlfriend, and no, I don’t think he’s gay. Actually, closeted gay politicians worried about being outed don’t usually take pro-gay positions.

Yesterday, on Twitter.com and on Facebook, candidate for Dayton City Commission David Esrati twat, "[Dayton Daily News editorial writer] Martin Gottlieb writes drivel about Gary Leitzell in todays DDN- go comment on his lameness," posting a link to Gottlieb’s 10/21/09 column about Dayton mayoral candidate Gary Leitzell, “Leitzell cites Reagan, Thatcher; what’s it mean”.

I don’t get what it is in Gottlieb’s column that Esrati finds to be “drivel.” Is it Gottlieb’s contention that “asking people whom they admire in public office often yields a lot”? No, surely that can’t be it.

Perhaps it’s Gottlieb’s premise, that something about a candidate who “is all about the independent label” and who says “that people shouldn’t read too much into the fact that he has the Republican endorsement” yet “really admire[s]” Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher doesn’t make sense. Taken independently, perhaps Gottlieb is reading too much into whom Leitzell most admires politically, but add in Leitzell’s Republican Party textbook reply to me in December 2008, that “changing the legal definition of a traditional word like marriage […] could lead us on a very dangerous course,” and Leitzell really does sound less independent and more Republican.

Now what Esrati finds to be drivel in Gottlieb’s column surely can’t be Gottlieb’s interpretation of Leitzell’s admiration of Reagan and Thatcher, “that he mentioned two people he sees as having come into bad situations and made them better.” Leitzell’s and Esrati’s campaigns are all about Dayton’s current mayor and city commission’s having let Dayton develop a bad (to put it mildly) situation, one that requires new blood in the persons of Leitzell and Esrati to make better.

No, instead what Gottlieb said that Esrati might see as drivel is that seasoned politicians wouldn’t be seen “naming two icons of the conservative Republicans when he’s seeking election in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.” Esrati may see that as drivel, but I don’t. No, I think that a novice politician might be excused at the outset of his campaign for making the stupid mistake of raising the issue of equal marriage rights, not a local issue, when asked his position on a city’s non-discrimination ordinance (although, if that novice politician himself does not have a traditional marriage, he might have thought twice before speaking). But almost a year later, a month before the election, is a continued overt association with Republican values and icons the best strategy for an independent to get elected in a heavily Democratic town? I’d say, probably not, and I’d also say it might be fair to assume that a politician who makes such missteps during his campaign could also show similar deficits in judgment in office.

One last thing—something I find incredibly ironic is that I hadn’t even been aware of Gottlieb’s article until Esrati pointed it out. Now that he’s done so, all the people who’ve been googling “Gary Leitzell” and ending up on my blog know about the article too.

A bit out of focus
but still legible

EasyParkDowntown.org as it looks in Firefox
(click to embiggen)


EasyParkDowntown.org as it looks in Internet Explorer
(click to embiggen)