He has made a liar out of us.
We vowed to ignore him. Using him as a punch line is too easy, and thus beneath our razor sharp wit. He is a caricature so thoroughly dissected that we were over and done with him.
We made a promise in this column we would never use his name again. On those rare occasions when that person had to be invoked, perhaps to provide a comparison or as historical context, he was referred to as “He Who Shall Not Be Named.” HWSNBN for short.
And then the zombie arose and walked.
Now we are forced to break our solemn vow. With a sentence we thought we would never again have to write.
Carleton S. Finkbeiner is running for mayor of Toledo.
We’re in the money
In hindsight it should have come as no surprise. Carty is the most opportunistic of opportunistic pols in the Swamp. He switches party affiliations whenever it suits his ambitions. He has been an R, a D, an I, and now an “independent Democrat,” whatever that is.
In the early 90s, when he was on Toledo City Council, Carty led the charge to change city government to a “strong mayor” form. This took broad administrative authority from a city manager, one who was trained in the art of budgeting and municipal operations, and gave it to the mayor’s office, with the selection of the occupant left to a popularity contest at the polls. Of course, Carty promptly ran for the newly empowered seat.
Carty served through the roaring 90s, the era of tech boom and fat budgets. His brash, belligerent style made him rather unpopular, such that he barely won re-election against an opponent no one heard from before, or since.
Term limits prevented Carty from seeking his preferred title ‘Mayor for Life’, and Jack Ford was elected in his place. This was the early aughts, as the housing boom got underway. With dollar signs in his eyes, Carty worked behind the scenes to wrest control of the local Democratic Party from the Paula Ross-Jack Ford faction and to challenge the incumbent mayor in twenty oh five.
Carty won, and proceeded to drive the city budget off the cliff, just as he had done at the end of his second term. As the Great Recession slammed into T Town, and major employers sat idle, Carty whistled obliviously on. His last budget proposal, issued as the global economy tanked in oh nine, inexplicably included spending increases.
The budget predictably collapsed.
Carty saw the shriveling city coffers and begged out of a re-election
campaign, instead leaving then new Mayor Mike Bell to clean up Carty’s forty million dollar deficit. We thought Carty had finally run his course. We believed his fiscal irresponsibility was his final undoing. We assumed T Town was sick of his false bravado, his antics, his coffee cup chucking and calling children “fatso.” That he was relegated to Toledo’s past and an infamous answer to a trivia board game.
We vowed to never use his name again.
Carty love
We lied. Didn’t mean to. Thought it was the truth. Yet here we are.
The city is emerging from a COVID ravaged economy. Mayor Wade did a remarkable job getting through it without major disruption. A few warts on his resume, to be sure, but Wade looks like a shoo in. We thought no realistic challenger would emerge.
We had forgotten just how opportunistic Carty truly is.
Remember, the City of Toledo is poised to accept, and allocate, a cool one hundred and eighty large (that’s millions, kiddos) in newly minted federal ducats. That’s a whole lotta green. And controlling it, and doling it out, will make someone a very popular Toledoan indeed.
Carty wants that Toledoan to be Carty. He has dollar signs in his eyes yet again. Forget that he has a penchant for budget busting. That he never saw a profligate expenditure he didn’t love. Never mind his ten thousand dollar golden shower.
We had forgotten the Carty golden rule. Carty doesn’t so much love Toledo. That’s his campaign lie.
Carty loves Carty. Of course, he thinks he is Toledo, so it’s sorta the same thing.
Understand that and understand the man.
