Plusquellic returns when he's needed the most

THE POST-ELECTION SCENE in the Guy's Party Centre for Mayor Don Plusquellic's victory party had an anticlimactic tone about it. The scattered crowd in the big banquet room milled about in muted reaction to his overwhelming victory for a 7th - and maybe toughest - term. Even some of the party notables were absent, including Democratic immortal Ray Kapper, who was recovering in Florida from a broken ankle. So far as I could tell as I wandered about the hall, that was the only news of the evening.

Plusquellic's overwhelming (70-30) victory over Republican Jennifer Hensal, who appeared to have been drawn from the Summit County GOP's practice squad, was fully expected. She was a nice enough woman who was terribly overmatched. (She would have much preferred to be appointed to a judgeship for her ad hoc usefulness in filling in a ballot blank.) So GOP Chairman Alex Arshinkoff will have to wait another four years to find somebody to accomplish what he hasn't been able to do during Plusquellic's 24 years as mayor.

I'm sure there was no one in the room who expected the outcome to be different. That was settled in the Democratic primary when the mayor defeated councilman Mike Williams. If they had cancelled this week's election, it would have been a meaningless gesture, and doubtless many Republicans would have sighed in relief.

Plusquellic's brief speech thanking his campaign staff gave him one more opportunity to warn the lingering gang of critics led by Akron Atty. Warner Mendenhall who have been finding various, if often mindless, ways to take down the mayor. The mayor, his well-known temper rising, called out Mendenhall with a warning that the latter had "no place to hide."

The past four years have been particularly troubling for the mayor , with his enemies forcing a recall election (which he won, 3-1) and more than surviving two party primaries and two general elections in the space of a single term.

I'd say that Akron is quite fortunate to have a guy with his competence and hometown dedication around for another four years.

Mike Williams: a 40-point mayoral campaign!

MICHAEL WILLIAMS' 40-point litany aimed at Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic doesn't quite match Martin Luther's 95 theses. But 40? It has to be some kind of record for a mayoral contest. And when you reach that far for an opening salvo against your opponent it suggests that you're hoping that at least a couple of them will stick as the race moves on through the heat of summer to the Sept. 13 Democratic primary.

Still, for all of the ground it covered, the Big 40 offered no surprises. Williams built his case on what the mayor's is opponents have been saying for years while taking a swipe at Plusquellic's well-known differences with the leadership of the Fraternal Order of Police. But Williams already seems assured of getting those leaders' support without emphasizing that as mayor you will be kinder to cops. It didn't work as a wedge issue against Plusquellic in the failed recall campaign against him.

In 2011, with much of world struggling to survive dismal economic numbers, there is really only one issue in a campaign within the boundaries, in this instance, of Akron, Oh. It is the troubling employment numbers. But here again, the city 's challenge is the same as in every city in America. Rhetoric won't solve the problem. So I was particularly interested to find Williams again fussing over Plusquellic's well- recorded and reported travels beyond Akron. (I'm sure the mayor will have much to say about the benefits of seeking new investors from abroad - even, for Heaven's sake, Finland! - when you are competing with every other city in the country to lure jobs to your hometown.)

Williams suggests that a mayor's inescapable noble obligation is to have a strong presence in the "neighborhoods" - whatever that's supposed to mean. But neighborhoods don't produce many jobs. Luring fresh money from outside of the community does produce the jobs that benefit the citizenry in all of the neighborhoods. All of which means: No mayor can dedicate his or her career to being a stay-at-home. Not in 2011, nor forevermore.

Now, about the other 39 points, I may save them for a rainy day.

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