Democratic Derby – Ohio’s 3rd District Primary

We are now less than two weeks out from primary day here in Ohio, and with incumbents Obama and Sherrod Brown running in the top-ticket races, there’s been little drama for Dems to participate in.

Unless you live in Columbus.*

I’m actually kind of amazed that this blockbuster battle has generated so little heat and so little light. For Pete’s sake, this is a Democratic primary in which an African American woman who has been elected multiple times to city council for the largest city in Ohio, in a district with a sizable African-American population, could come in fourth.

We wrote about this district when it was created back in October, and speculated about four high-profile candidates who could run. Two of them, David Leland and Charleta Tavares, are not actually running. Who is running? Maybe you’ve heard of some of these folks:

Mary Jo Kilroy. Former U.S. Representative and Franklin County Commissioner. In the former role she was part of the Democratic majority that passed Obama’s health plan and other initiatives, in the latter role she’s the only one who has been on the ballot in every precinct in the new district. She has money, experience, the endorsement of MoveOn.org, and front-runner status.

Joyce Beatty. Former House Minority Leader at the statehouse and probably the better known of the two African American women in the race. She has stepped down (possibly permanently) from her lucrative Vice President gig at OSU to take this shot at getting to Capitol Hill. Has support of very popular Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman.

Ted Celeste. Unlike the first two candidates listed, actually won his last election has been continuously in office through the GOP wave (ed note – criminy, I used to be better at fact checking myself – Beatty declined to run for new office in 2010). Represents Grandview area at the Statehouse, shares last name and parents with a former governor you might remember.

Priscilla Tyson. Described above, currently serving as Columbus City Councilwoman, has support of local progressive favorite Andrew Ginther.

I honestly do not know who I am going to vote for. There will be a sold out “discussion” amongst the candidates at the WOSU COSI studios tomorrow hosted by the Columbus Metropolitan Club, and it will be interesting to see if any of the four get any kind of buzz coming out of that. If not, well… Like I said – this election has garnered surprisingly little fanfare, and nothing else on the ballot for Dems will drive turnout – so who wins depends entirely on who shows up, and who shows up (pulling a Dem ballot rather than trying to monkeywrench the GOP with a Newt vote…) is a really open question. So… Dear Readers, as active and engaged progressive voters, care to cast an unscientific ballot?

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And if you wanna convince me to agree with you, leave a comment.

*edit- yes, yes, there’s an interesting race in the 9th as well. Forgive me. In my pre-PB blogging days I believed there was a DK version of Godwin’s Law – Mention Dennis and no further meaningful conversation could occur. I promise we’ll give you a chance to comment & vote on the Kaptur/Kucinich/Veysey race soon.