They say you can be lucky in politics or good. George Voinovich, who died Sunday at the age of 79, served as mayor of Cleveland, 65th governor of Ohio, and U.S. senator from Ohio, not to mention state legislator and lieutenant governor, and a number of other state and local offices. A Republican, he was a good politician, the kind that many people yearn for today. But he was also an exceedingly lucky politician.
In 1978, Mr. Voinovich, then a commissioner in Cuyahoga County, was plucked by James Rhodes to be his lieutenant governor. Mr. Voinovich was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1979, thanks to the train wreck that was Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat. He won the governorship in 1990, in part, thanks to reaction, and revulsion, at the governorship of Dick Celeste, also a Democrat.
George Voinovich was a safe pair of hands — a good administrator who hired good administrators and a mayor and governor with zero interest in ideology and 100 percent interest in what worked.
He was far more at home as a mayor and governor than as a senator. He was a pragmatist not a partisan, a doer not a legislator.
George Voinovich was a rarity in politics — an ethnic Republican from Cleveland, a public servant in a profession often frequented by egoists and bumblers, a plain-spoken problem-solver in a sea of blather. He could work across party lines. His personal integrity was never questioned. While as governor he lavished maybe too much attention on the state’s larger cities, he did revive Cleveland. He was fiscally conservative but progressive on education and child welfare.
And that was a winning formula. Mr. Voinovich’s good luck continued to the end of his career. He just kept winning elections. He won with 64 percent in 2004 — 3.5 million votes — and carried all 88 Ohio counties, the biggest vote-getter in recorded Ohio history. He finally retired voluntarily in 2010. Most public lives end in failure and defeat.
First Published: June 15, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
