OH-03: Interview With Jane Mitakides

Early last month I had a long talk with Jane Mitakides (D) about her campaign for Congress in the 3rd Ohio Congressional District. I was unable to get this interview transcribed and published before the primary election as I intended, but now with all of that distraction ended it is the prefect time to get acquainted with this candidate, who has the experience, the resources, and the energy to run a strong race in a district that is trending blue, although held by Rep. Mike Turner (R-Centerville) since 2003.

[UPDATE: Dave of Into My Own is a big fan of Jane Mitakides and is blogging "full bore" about her race. He has set up this ActBlue link for readers to contribute to her campaign.]

YDS: I'm delighted to have this opportunity to talk to you because I think the 3rd District is an exciting opportunity for the Democrats and you are an exciting candidate. So I want to ask you a few questions to introduce you to readers of my blog. How far back does your interest in politics go?

JM: The first campaign headquarters I ever set foot in my life was John F. Kennedy for President in 1960. I was just a child and my mother was volunteering down there and she took me with her. It was long before word processors and she would address postcards and letters and things and let me put the stamps on them. So I was pretty sure that I had single-handedly gotten John Kennedy elected. [laughter] So, I have always been involved. I think that as an adult one of the first major races I was involved with was Al Gore for President 1988. I still have those buttons and bumper stickers.

YDS: Uh huh.

JM: My grandfather was a judge in Tennessee. There was just this tradition of involvement and service in my family.

YDS: Where were you born and where did you grow up?

JM: I was born here in Dayton. My first home was here in the city. I've lived around this area almost all of my life. I lived in Cincinnati for about two and a half years, and I lived in New York for about a year.

YDS: That's fantastic about John F. Kennedy. My father was in the Navy so I grew up in the usual ports of call, one of which was Newport, Rhode Island, while it was Kennedy's "Summer White House." I remember seeing him when I was six and it was an electrifying experience.

JM: I remember that my mother took me to hear him speak from the steps of the courthouse here in Dayton. It occurred to someone that it had been exactly 100 years since Abraham Lincoln had come to Dayton campaigning in 1860 and had spoken from the courthouse, so they had found old photos and built a platform in much the same place and manner. Of course, no one knew at the time all of the various tragic parallels that would eventually be drawn between the two of those two presidents.

YDS: Before your run for Congress in 2004, had you run for office?

JM: No. I had been involved in helping support other people and issues that I believed in, but it wasn't until 2000 that I considered being the candidate. I was working with the Gore campaign in Tennessee and several people there urged me to consider running. I really had never thought about it.

I gave it some thought at that time and talked to people in Washington and elsewhere about it. Then when I was asked by the county party chair here in Montgomery County [Dennis Lieberman] to run in 2004 I was really honored and delighted to run. I had wonderful support.

YDS: Since you aspire to be a legislator, I have to ask this. Who would you regard as your role model, the person you would look to as an example for how to conduct yourself in that role?

JM: That's an interesting question. There are a couple of people who come to mind. Certainly, the late [U.S. Sen.] Paul Wellstone, in his conduct and dedication, I think he was just a living example of a person who understands the difference between politics and public service. His politics were far more liberal than mine, but as a role model, as a person who fought to do the right thing and represent the people of his district, certainly Paul Wellstone.

And Daniel Patrick Moynihan is another thoughtful, intelligent person who served our country so well.

YDS: I went to Carleton College when Paul Wellstone was a professor there.

JM: I was just so moved when I heard him speak, heard him tell his story. And I remember telling him at the time, "Senator, I don't remember ever having a professor who was this dynamic when I was in school." [laughter] But really, he never lost his, not just sense of responsibility in elected office, but his sense that it was a privilege to serve. Those are imposing buildings in Washington, the office buildings and the capitol itself, and I think that too often people can become self-important, because of the power that they hold.

I always thought it was interesting that Bill Clinton used to say, "The people hired me to do" this or that, he never lost his sense that he was hired to do something. I think it is tragic when that is lost. Just to have the privilege of walking through those halls and speaking up for the people of your district is such an awesome responsibility but also such a deep honor, and Paul Wellstone never lost that sense of awe. And how magnificent it is to help the people of your district, help the people of the nation, but also in large measure to help shape history. And I hope that if I should serve as long as [U.S. Sen.] Robert Byrd, that I would never lost that sense of honor at just being there.

YDS: Well, since you say that you are not as liberal as Paul Wellstone, I guess that I should ask how you describe your politics. Where do you see yourself as being more middle-of-the-road or more conservative than …

JM: It's funny, when I ran in 2004 I used to say that I was the most conservative Democrat in America, but now there are several people making that claim, including [U.S. Sen.] Jim Webb of Virginia. I am fiscally conservative. I would fight long and hard to make sure that budgets are as close to being balanced as they could be. I know that it's going to take a while to get back to that fiscal responsibility.

I also think that in the quest to help working families, who so desperately need our help, that our party can forget about the small businesses that are the engine of new jobs growth in our economy. I think that we have to have a good balance toward working people and businesses. I don't mean the Bush tax breaks and huge giveaways to big multi-national corporations, but I'm talking about small businesses and medium-sized businesses in our communities. We can't afford to ignore those. We ignore those at our peril.

YDS: Would you describe yourself as a Blue Dog Democrat like Rep. Charlie Wilson in the 6th Congressional District and Rep. Zack Space in the 18th?

JM: I think that's a fair assessment. Like Zack, I have an "A" rating from the NRA, which sets me apart from many of my Democratic brethren, and certainly my female Democratic brethren.

YDS: Right.

JM: I'm also a little less enthusiastic about amnesty, about treating people who entered our country illegally with the same mind set as the civil rights movement. It is not the same thing. And I don't believe that our country can possibly even pretend to be secure until we secure our borders. Not everyone who is coming here is coming with good intentions and just trying to do better for their families. I don't think we should shut off immigration. If we have a wall, whether it is literal or figurative, it should have a huge door in it. We just need to know who is here.

YDS: That does sound like Zack Space, actually.

JM: Does it?

YDS: Yes. I like him very much. But yeah, he's a very ...

JM: I do too. Zack is of Greek descent, and you can certainly see my name is Greek. So, Zack and I were recently together in Chicago at the national meeting of an organization for Greek Americans and we had some good times together. I think he may be attending the National Hellenic Institute dinner in Washington on March 15th that my husband and I will be attending.

YDS: Are you pro-life like Rep. Tim Ryan, who is a "Democrat for Life"?

JM: I am pro-choice. I am a Roman Catholic mother of two, but I do not believe that, as long as childbirth is the leading cause of death among women of childbearing age worldwide, that politics needs to get into the tragic decision that some women have to make. It's a medical decision, and politicians need to stay out of it. I'm absolutely a supporter of choice.

YDS: You ran in 2004, you didn't run in 2006. What motivated you to jump in this cycle?

JM: I very much wanted to run in 2006 but my car had been struck, in a car accident. I thought at that time that I was looking at some really ugly back surgery. I fortunately avoided that with a lot of exercise and physical therapy and whatever. So it wasn't as though I didn't want to continue to try to serve. I just knew that if I couldn't give it a hundred percent I shouldn't be doing it.

So, I'm back, and fit as a fiddle, and really looking forward to this race. I've chatted with [Gov.] Ted Strickland a little bit, and before I entered the race I commissioned some research into the winability of this district. And I was not just pleased, but really surprised, at the strength of the possibility of this district. Ted Strickland carried this district with 56%. That's including Highland, Warren, Clinton, the areas that traditionally skew Republican. District-wide, 56% is a pretty comfortable margin. And Sherrod Brown did pretty well too.

YDS: What did you learn in your 2004 campaign that will lead you to do anything differently this time around?

JM: That's a really good question because I have been involved with campaigns virtually my whole life and, you know, you think you know what you are doing, but until you are the candidate, you really don't have a clue what it is like.

I will be much more cautious about taking advice and about hiring consultants. One of the things I learned is that there are so many people and so many good resources right around here that I think I can conserve … you know, I spent a lot more money on help and consultants because you want to be so careful, you want to be sure you are getting the best possible advice. What I learned is that you can get that here, you don't have to spend all that much money, I will be more cautious about that. It is so hard to raise money. I will be far more judicious in what I spend it on.

We ran a good race in 2004. Beyond that I'm not sure what I would do differently. I have some people who helped me before coming back. I have just recently hired a campaign manager who is just terrific. I think I am going to run a very lean campaign in terms of staff and that sort of thing.

YDS: Who's your campaign manager?

JM: Patrick McHugh. Most recently he was working with John Edwards. He was with the company [Penn, Schoen and Berland] that was founded and run by Mark Penn, who you might know, who is Hillary's primary strategist. One of the other principals in that company is David Ginsberg, who is one of the top messaging/strategist people in the country. He was John Edwards' communication director in '04. He's just fantastic.

You know, most people make up their minds on the basis of television. Some on direct mail, but a lot of it is based on television. You simply have to have the ability to communicate with them, and that means buying TV spots. To raise the kind of money that I need to be effective in this race I need to reach far beyond the borders of the 3rd Congressional District.

We are limited in federal races to $2,300 per person. That's a lot of individual donors to get to where I need to be.

YDS: Um hm.

JM: And of course we're hoping that like last time … this race got national attention, and I had such great support from internet contributors. Small amounts, most of them, but they sure went to make a big total. I think Ron Paul has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that a small group of dedicated people working to get the message out can raise a lot of money.

YDS: Are you going to pursue an Emily's List endorsement?

JM: I have tremendous respect for that organization, but they almost never endorse challengers. They like incumbents, like Barbara Boxer and those folks, but they also like open seat races. They will only support maybe a dozen races in a cycle. The equally important help, and one I am more likely to be able to achieve, is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

YDS: Right.

JM: When I ran the first time they had a targeted list of about 12 or 14 races. Now, under the direction of Howard Dean … well, first of all, they have a lot more money this time. They are going to be targeting more like 40 or 45 races. They put out a list in December of races they are targeting and there were a couple here in Ohio, but OH-03 wasn't on it. But I hadn't turned in my petitions yet.

YDS: How would you characterize the 3rd District and the needs of its residents, as compared to other districts in Ohio? What makes it distinctive?

JM: Unlike some of the districts, like my friend Stephanie Tubbs Jones in O-11 in Cleveland, Dayton is our largest population center, which of course isn't near as large as Cleveland or Cincinnati. But the district is a little more compact than the way that some of the other districts are drawn, squiggling all over the map. But OH-03 is very representative of the State of Ohio. We have Dayton. Although Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is not in our district, it is our largest employer, so we have that component. We have what are now being called the exurbs, the further out suburbs … we have Warren County.

My part of Warren County has a higher family per capita income than any of my other counties. On average. There are pockets that go back and forth. So it is interesting. It used to be very rural, it used to be very Republican. It's still the most Republican-leaning part of my district. (My pollster refers to it as the "Jewel in the Republican Crown" of OH-03.) But it's not as overwhelmingly Republican in my part of the county as it used to be because of all the construction and all the new people coming in.

But just like the State of Ohio as a whole, we go from urban in Dayton to the suburbs to the exurbs in Warren County, and then down to Clinton and Highland that for the most part are rural, there are still a lot of family farms down there, but people forget that the third largest employer in OH-03 is down in Wilmington, and that's ABX Air. They carry all of the packages for DHL. It's like UPS has their big sorting center in Tennessee, everything DHL goes through Wilmington. It's a wonderful company and a fantastic operation. To go in there at 2:00 in the morning and see everything, to watch the planes begin to come in. It's the largest privately-owned airport in the United States.

YDS: Oh!

JM: So it's a very interesting district here. We also have a very high percentage of veterans in my district. Partly of course because of the big Veterans' Center in Dayton.

YDS: What issues do you expect to shape the race? The economy, the war, something else?

JM: I think the economy is absolutely going to be Number One. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see us having any kind of a rapid turnaround. We're still seeing job losses (the report for January was very discouraging), people are still losing their homes at appalling rates. I think the economy is going to be a very large issue.

The war, perhaps … although I think the uncertainty of what's next has been alleviated somewhat, because each of the Democrats running for president … they may vary by 10 words out of 100 paragraphs of what their position is on Iraq. So if the Democrats do indeed take the White House, I think the people have a sense of what is coming next. It will be a very interesting debate once the Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate begin running against each other, because there is such a stark difference in the positions.

So, Iraq will continue to be a concern. I think that immigration will continue to be a concern. Probably not as much in OH-03 as in some other parts of the country, but it's a situation that we need to get a handle on, soon. And education, always education.

YDS: What impact do you expect the presidential race to have on OH-03, and what difference would it make to have Obama versus Clinton at the top of the ticket?

JM: Of course the presidential race is going to have a huge impact on my race. We saw the blue tide rising in 2006. When I ran in '04, there wasn't one single statewide office held by a Democrat. Now they all are, except one. That started in '06. I think that we are going to see just a tidal wave in '08.

I think that there is a thirst for change. People are finally beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel. When you look at every race so far, Democratic turnout has doubled or nearly doubled from the primary last time around. The enthusiasm, and the demographics, are so different from my prior race. The enthusiasm is just overwhelming.

Even in Florida, where there were not major Democratic campaign operations and no institutional get-out-the-vote efforts, turnout more than doubled. Republicans went down.

So, what we are seeing is this huge thirst for change that I think will be reflected in a lot of races, not just the presidential but most especially in mine. If we see even a tenth of the enthusiasm and increased turnout that we're seeing around the country in OH-03, it changes everything. This is a Democratic-trending district.

I suspect that since Ohio will once again be the lynchpin, the battleground, enthusiasm will run very high. This will be their opportunity to seize and solidify that majority that started in 2006.

The two presidential candidates, either one, represent such historic change. Women are voting in record numbers. That may be because of Hillary, it might have something to do with Obama. Young people are turning out, participating in numbers that none of us thought could be achieved. I think a lot of that is because of Obama talking of turning the page, of looking to the future. You know, finally having a politics of possibility, it is just creating such an excitement on the Democratic side that is breath-taking. And changes my race.

Mine is a winnable race with zero increase in voter turnout, because Ted already carried it with 56%. But factor in any kind of increased voter turnout! I have twelve universities and colleges either in or very near my district. So if young people mobilize, the way they have been in the Democratic primaries, this is a fantastic race.

You can tell, I am so excited. I knew in 2004 that all the pieces would have to fall exactly the right way for me to win that race. I needed a strong, strong presidential effort in all of my counties, and of course Kerry didn't do that. He concentrated his resources in Democratic strongholds and really hurt a lot of us who were running in places that included areas that weren't Democratic strongholds. And, of course, cost himself the presidential election.

I think that the next candidate for president, whether it's Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama, will not make that mistake. They will do what Karl Rove did in 2004, and that is organize in every precinct in ever county in Ohio. And that, for me, is fantastic.

You just don't see the enthusiasm on the Republican side.

YDS: Are you supporting one of the two remaining Democratic contenders?

JM: I am not. I'm glad I'm not being asked to make an endorsement because I think they are both fantastic.

I've known President Clinton well for … well, we met in 1992.

YDS: Really!

JM: Yes. Well, I helped with his campaigns a lot in 1992 and 1996.

I talked to Senator Clinton about a year ago. I told here, "I just read your book and when I bought it I did the same thing that a lot of other people did, you know, I turned to the index in the back to see if my name was in it." And she said, "Was it?" And I said, "Well, not exactly, but …" In the book she tells the story about when she was campaigning in Texas while she was the First Lady of Arkansas, that she asked someone for a Diet Dr Pepper. She had a friend down there, Gary Morrow, that she had known since she was a McGovern organizer and Gary Morrow was the head of the College Democrats in Texas. And Gary just loves Diet Dr Pepper, and she thought was so sick of iced tea that she was going to try one of these. And she wrote that by the end of week she felt like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, when she couldn't make the dancing buckets stop. Because everywhere she went there was all this Diet Dr Pepper, and she wrote, "I only drank the one in my entire life." And so I said, "Senator, you didn't mention me by name, but I was one of the dancing buckets." [laughter] Because Gary would call me and say, "Now, Jane, do we have Diet Dr Pepper for Hillary? Do we have enough Diet Dr Pepper?" And she laughed and said, "I had no idea." And I said, "Yeah."

I have known them both for a long time, and I know that she is so intelligent and so …. One of the things we share is that I am a little wonky. I want to understand the nuts and bolts, I want to life the hood and really understand an issue. I am not a person who will just get the talking points from the DNC and go with that. I really enjoy understanding it in depth, whatever the issue is, and really rolling up my sleeves and getting into it. And certainly Hillary is like that. She loves fully understanding all the aspects of an issue, and would be a fantastic president. Absolutely. And would turn out women in huge numbers.

Barack Obama on the other hand has the vibrancy and the intelligence and the passion for reaching higher that is touching a chord in so many people. Because he talks about hope and optimism, people forget that he is a Chicago politician. He knows the nuts and bolts of how to do voter turnout. He was schooled in how to do campaign operations in an area that has a tremendous voter turnout. He's a wonderful combination of being able to run a great race and also a great and hopeful message.

So I would just be pleased as punch with either one of them. In my secret heart of hearts, I am hoping that it will be either an Obama-Hillary or Hillary-Obama ticket. I can't imagine anything better for the country right now. Or anything better for my race. Can you imagine the turnout if that's the case?

YDS: Right. I know. Well, thank you very much. You've been very generous with your time.

JM: Well, it's been my pleasure. The mountain I have to climb is not that this district is heavily Republican on any of the analyses you can see on any of the various web sites, it's only Republican-leaning … and that's not true from '06 on. My problem is the perception of it, and of course the Dayton Daily news has been very supportive of Mr Turner both when he was mayor and in Congress. It never fails to mention how "impossible" this race is. That's just not accurate. In the state that is the swing state in the country, this is the swing district.

I mean, the heart of my vote -- 75% of my vote -- is still Montgomery County. Even though I have a lot more land mass, out in Highland County and Clinton County, 75% of my votes is still the good Democrats from Montgomery County who elected Tony Hall for 22 years. Back when OH-03 was pretty much Montgomery County, before they added the other areas. And that is still 75% of my vote.

That, to me, is just so exciting, to see how the voting trends have changed in this district, before you even factor in the enthusiasm and the increased voter turnout. It's really remarkable.

YDS: Great. Good luck with your campaign, and I'll look forward to following it closely, and helping you to break the traditional media deadlock on coverage …

JM: I do not hold much hope that the Dayton Daily News is going to do anything other than what they have done, which is to support Mr. Turner, and they certainly have that option. But the other thing that is changing, and I don't have to explain it to you, is people are getting their news so many different ways now. Having one newspaper in town that is controlling all of the news just isn't the fact any more. People are reading online, they're reading blogs and they're reading other newspapers online. It's a lot easier to get your message out without having to have it go through that particular filter.