|
98 Degrees'
Justin Jeffre Tanks In Cincy Mayoral Primary
09.14.2005
Singer gets only 708 votes. |
|
|
CINCINNATI — Maybe Nick Lachey should have run
after all.
Even with fund-raising help from his 98 Degrees bandmates,
Justin Jeffre couldn't overcome voter skepticism — and let's face it, with only
20 percent turnout, voter
apathy — about hiscampaign for Cincinnati mayor.
The singer, 32, who announced his unlikely candidacy in April at his hometown
alma mater (see "Former 98 Degrees Member Running For Mayor Of
Cincinnati"), came in a distant
fifth place in the nonpartisan primary held on Tuesday, garnering just 2 percent
of the vote.
Though his 708 votes paled in comparison to the more than
13,000 scooped up by the top two candidates who will vie for mayor on November
8, Jeffre didn't come in dead last. He beat 83-year-old retired shoemaker Sylvan
Grisco (0.3 percent, with 130 votes) and security guard and three-time
presidential candidate Sandra Queen Noble (0.2 percent, 121 votes), who was
unable to raise any money to support her candidacy.
"I feel good," a
tired Jeffre said Wednesday morning (September 14). "I think we did well given
the lack of coverage that the local media gave my campaign. I was a grass-roots
candidate and not one of the big-money, big-party politicians and I got some
national and international attention, but the local media chose to marginalize
my campaign, which I think was a great disservice to the community."
At
the April 1 campaign announcement, Lachey said, "People will be quick to write
him off, but he really cares about this city for the right reasons and I will
help him any way I can." Jeffre's campaign was focused on education, luring
young people back to the city, revitalizing downtown and improving
police/community relations.
But the candidacy failed to attract much
local media attention, despite some high-profile help from Lachey, who was on
hand at a fund-raising party in April as well as a non-singing 98 Degrees
reunion at a Cincinnati rally on September 3 aimed at raising funds and Jeffre's
profile.
But Jeffre's not done. He said he's launching a local citizen
and student watchdog action group to "create a network of engaged citizens to
make sure that citizens have good places to get information on all candidates,
not just ones that the local media decides to cover." He hopes to eventually
take the group national and warns, "Don't be surprised if in 2009 Justin Jeffre
is back in the ring."
In the meantime, the recent 98 Degrees reunion
stoked the group's interest in getting back in the studio, which the guys plan
to do soon. "Nick and Jeff [Timmons] have studios in L.A., so we're going to get
together and start writing and working on our next project," Jeffre said.
"Everyone is ready to come together and it's taken this long, so we're in no
hurry to drop something before we feel like we have things the way we want
them." — Gil
Kaufman
| | 
