Jennifer Brunner - Ohio Secretary of State

Election Day

Posted by Rick Brunner - November 8, 2006 10:49 PM - Permalink

Election day and it was still very dark. Your correspondent woke to sounds of someone screwing around in the kitchen and I realized our children, John and Laura (our daughter from Boston who you haven't read much about), were leaving to put signs out at polling places. It had always been our family tradition on election day to get up early, put out signs at polling places, go vote, and then go have breakfast out. Now, our young adult children were out screwing around the city putting up signs at polling places for their mother. We caught up with our staff and our children around 6:30 a.m. and had a breakfast at Bob Evans on Olentangy River Road. By that time, we were dressed for the day.

Your correspondent had an oral argument in the 10th District Court of Appeals, and Judge French complemented your correspondent on being there that day when there was obviously so much going on. After the oral argument, it was very hard to continue working. We had discussed going to see a movie that afternoon, but we were still at the office working. We arrived at our home around 4:30 to have a quiet supper with friends and family coming into town. It was hard to eat and there were a lot of butterflies in the stomach. We had originally planned to go downtown at 7:30, but we were advised that the federal court had ordered the polls in Cleveland to stay open until :00. So, it wasn't really worth going downtown at 7:30. Yet, by 7:30, it was also impossible for our candidate or your correspondent to sit still. So, we dressed and went downtown with friends and family to wait it out with our staff in the suite.

The Hyatt on Capital Square was a crush of people and it was difficult to make our way to the suite. Our candidate was a celebrity and there were folks stopping us every two feet as we made our way to the suite. By the time we got to the suite, we were spending so much time with friends and supporters that the butterflies went away and we had other things to focus on other than awaiting the election results. Then, slowly, the results started trickling in. with 1% of the vote in, our candidate was already in the lead. Shortly after the polls closed, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell conceded to Ted Strickland. Then our friend, Frances Strickland, appeared at our suite and invited our candidate to be on stage when Ted Strickland made his speech, so she went down at 10:00 p.m.

Your correspondent attempted to make his way into the ballroom with his parents and family members. We were barely able to squeeze into the ballroom, which was packed very, very tightly. If anybody went by you...well, you got very personal with them. While your correspondent was standing there, his cell phone rang and our staff announced that CNN and ONN had projected our candidate as the winner!! So, your correspondent telephoned our candidate while she was on the stage with Ted Strickland and his family and announced that news. Then, the call came that her opponent wanted to speak to her on her cell phone. It was a tight squeeze to get through the crowd and luckily, with the badge he was wearing, your correspondent was able to get back stage. Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman motioned your correspondent onto the stage and I was able to grab our candidate and tell her that she needed to exit the stage to accept a call from her opponent. This was sometime around 10:30 p.m. As we stood in a back hallway, our campaign manager, Kate Anderson, handed her cell phone to our candidate and we heard her accept the concession of her opponent. The conversation went something like this:

Our candidate: Greg, how are you doing this evening?
Opponent: Well, not as good as you are.
Our candidate: I wanted to wish you and your family the best.

It was stunning!

The "down ticket" candidates were not scheduled to give their speeches for awhile yet, so we made our way back up to our suite where all of our staff and many friends and family and other well wishers had crowded around. Then, in short time, it was time to go down on stage and have our candidate give her speech. We went up on stage with many friends and most of our family on stage with us. The first part of our candidate's speech was probably not the best speech that your correspondent has ever heard her give. You could tell she was struggling to remember all the people that needed to be thanked and to be able to express what she was feeling. But, about mid-way through the speech, she abandoned that and then spoke from the heart about what she hoped to do with the office and where she hoped to take it. The cheers were deafening and you could see her draw confidence from that. It was stunning to stand up there in this crowded ballroom of cheering folks and have them wave back to you and scream out adulation towards our candidate. The moment was simply electrifying.

Then we made our way off the stage to a media room where lots of TV reporters and press reporters, and even radio reporters, were interviewing our candidate. Your correspondent spent some time with Peggy Cordray, the wife of our new treasurer. We speculated on our respective spouses and careers and where we might be 8 years from now. One particularly fun interview that your correspondent heard our candidate give was to the Sun Newspapers, one of the two newspapers in the entire state that did not endorse her. When the reporter from the Suns News asked what our candidate attributed her success to, she indicated it was all the newspaper endorsements she received. Apparently, the irony of that statement went over the head of the reporter.

We then made our way up to the suite and spent time until about 2:00 a.m. when the room had dwindled down to just a few folks. Even trying to leave the hotel at 2:00 a.m., we saw so many friends and supporters that it took another hour to make it to our car and into our home. We then watched election returns until approximately 4:00 a.m. the next morning. Our candidate was up by 7:30, and later, we went out for brunch with friends and family in from out of state. By 6:00 p.m., on November 8, we were alone in our home, but still running on adrenaline. We were up at 4:00 a.m. the next morning to drive our daughter Laura back to the airport so she could fly back to her job in Boston. We went to work that day and continued to work the rest of the week, but somehow even with our first day off since August 3, on November 8, we hadn't yet caught up on our sleep. Finally, by November 10, we were exhausted.

The Secretary of State Elect quickly found a place to get away and we flew to Amelia Island near Jacksonville, Florida, where we proceeded to spend two days sleeping pool side or in the hotel room. We didn't tour, we took one walk on the beach on Sunday morning, and we even ate some of the meals from room service, just so we could rest even more.

Being Secretary of State Elect does come with a few rewards, like having received an invitation from president of the Ohio State University to attend a brunch prior to the Ohio State-Michigan game, which should be the national championship this year. Clearly, that is not something that happened to our candidate or your correspondent before she became the secretary of state elect.

It will be nice to stop traveling Ohio for awhile, but we do look forward to many more travels and watching Ohio turn around.

Posted by Rick Brunner - November 8, 2006 10:49 PM - Permalink