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Dave Larsen writes about higher education.
Kelly Mori writes about health and higher education.Home > Blogs > On Campus > Archives > 2008 > February > 20 > Entry
McCain made a second stop in Dayton
Senator John McCain made not one, but two campaign stops in Dayton today.
One you heard about and had a chance to attend, the one held at Young’s Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs. That event was well-publicized, and about 500 people showed up.
The other one was closed to the public.
After the lunch-hour Young’s Dairy event, the Republican Presidential hopeful went to Sinclair Community College to hold a private event with “area supporters,” according to a news release sent by Sinclair around 3:45 this afternoon. Sinclair notified the public after the event that McCain had stopped there. The private meeting was held in Sinclair’s Conference Center, known locally as “Building 12.”
“The by-invitation-only event was a stop on McCain’s campaign trail to gain additional support in Ohio prior to the upcoming March 4th primary,” the release said.
The Dayton Daily News was told Tuesday that McCain was attending a private event in Dayton in addition to the dairy visit on Wednesday, but wouldn’t disclose the location. Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, said McCain would meet with key backers but that it was not a fund-raiser.
About 50 people attended the Sinclair meeting, including Sinclair’s President, Steven Lee Johnson.
While there, McCain talked about community colleges and encouraged people to volunteer for his campaign. From Sinclair’s statement:
During his comments to attendees, McCain emphasized the link between workforce development and economic strength. According to Dr. Steven Johnson, president of Sinclair, “Senator McCain stressed that America’s community colleges are the most appropriate and effective location for workforce development education. That is a sentiment we heartily agree with.”
So if the college’s president was in attendance, and McCain spent time stumping and talking about community colleges and workforce development (Sinclair’s specialty), why close it to the public? Sinclair said their hands were tied because it was private, at the client’s request.
“We just did what we were told,” said Sinclair Spokeswoman Natasha Baker in a phone interview this evening. “His campaign paid for the room like anyone else, and they made that decision, not us. We honored that request.” Sinclair actually wanted to make it a public event, turn it into a rally similar to the Chelsea Clinton visit last week, but was flatly told no, to their disappointment, Baker said.
The event has some people wondering about the openness of public campuses. And the secrecy of it will only lead to speculation about the nature of the event.
Baker said McCain’s rental of a conference room for a private event was no different than other local organizations who hold private events, such as an annual meeting, at its conference center.
No surprise there that the campaign wanted it closed to the public. Candidates don’t want to woo major supporters in the public spotlight, and potential donors are media-shy. They’re entitled to keep it private. Baker did not know if any public officials or Sinclair trustees were in the room, adding that as far as she knew the only college personnel permitted to be there was Johnson.
Some might say McCain’s campaign choosing a public campus for a private event with key backers, then telling the campus to keep a lid on it, put Sinclair in an awkward position.
Is a public college campus an appropriate venue for a single candidate’s political wooing? And finally, how public are public campuses? Should private groups be permitted to have closed meetings on public property?
Permalink | Comments (19) | Categories: Ohio Primary
Comments
By john
February 20, 2008 8:00 PM | Link to this
What a joke of blog….does tis mn that young Democrats and Republicans can’t hold meetings on a college campus. Ths blogger is in left field an has one thing on her mind. HILLARY Quit blogging,you’re a joke!By Hugh
February 20, 2008 8:09 PM | Link to this
John: You go away - you’re the joke here.By BIG Dave
February 20, 2008 8:23 PM | Link to this
Get over it Steph! You’re just mad that they didn’t invite you… The party paid for a room and that’s that. If you’re phishing for a story, try warmer waters, like off the coast of Lake Michigan near Chicago.By Different John
February 20, 2008 8:30 PM | Link to this
There is hope for Mr. McCain. If Hillary Bush gets the democratic nomination, I will be voting for Mr. McCain. Otherwise, GO OBAMA!!!By The Jester
February 20, 2008 9:34 PM | Link to this
First a disclaimer: I’m a lifelong Democrat that will be voting for Mr. Obama. That said…Bwahahahahahah! Let’s see here…Mr. McCain’s campaign paid for use of Sinclair’s conference facilities with genuine Yankee Dollars and exercised its constitutional right to free association, and somehow you’re trying to dredge up a story?! Are you attempting to make news or report it? Hack!By Fairview Tax Payer
February 20, 2008 10:07 PM | Link to this
Tell me how open to the public Hillary Clinton’s visit to the F.R.O.C. Priority Board Office was. I know she only allowed some hand-picked people there and invited the DDN to take pictures, but I was actually deprived of my Priority Board Office for the whole day because she was staging a town hall meeting that I couldn’t attend. This building is actually owned by the city and was established so citizens won’t have to go downtown to city hall with neighborhood problems. On top of that, 17 Dayton Police Officers had to be pulled from there beats to provide extra security while Hillary was busy shutting down a public building all day for a campaign stop/photo op. How well served were the people of the F.R.O.C. area and the City of Dayton by all these actions? And you are worried about someone who actually paid to rent a hall at a community college that is rented out 200 days a year to anyone and everyone? So are you now going to go back and see how many groups have rented Building 12 and asked it to be closed to non-invitees? You know for balance? I’m betting on silence.By jimmie
February 20, 2008 10:34 PM | Link to this
steph- What a waste of bandwidth. Get over it already.By Peter J
February 20, 2008 10:36 PM | Link to this
If only a major local university had just released a Master Plan this week, the Steph would have soemething of substance to write about. But I understand that with the move to the new building on South Main they would probably be the last to find out about such an occurance.By Stephanie Gottschlich
February 21, 2008 7:54 AM | Link to this
Peter J: I did write about University of Dayton’s master plan. We reported it first thing Monday morning, when UD announced it and wrote pretty extensively about it. In case you missed it, you can read the pretty long-ish story about it at: http://tinyurl.com/2zwe7z This short URL will get you to the DDN story. ThanksBy victor mickunas
February 21, 2008 9:14 AM | Link to this
Stephanie, how wonderful it is to have your erudite scribblings on this new DDN blog! As your readers leave their comments-amid the twitter and the flitter-one recalls a fellow blogger who has the motto; “never let them see you sweat.” Good luck!By Jim 5
February 21, 2008 10:17 AM | Link to this
Stephanie, the recent shooting at the University of Northern Illinois University has me worried about “the openness of public campuses”, too.By Mary
February 21, 2008 10:33 AM | Link to this
I do not know the legal details used to interpret the rights of the people to “freely” assemble - although like all private groups, as at libraries and schools, these groups in theory pay their fair share of the costs, and no private business or political group should be getting special treatment in their use of public facilities and funds. Why was the college president there? Was that appropriate since it was not a “public” meeting? Did some public funds and support leech into the event either through payroll or coffee and refreshment slush funds that college presidents use/have? This will not be the first time public funds and resources have been abused to promote favored private, business or partisan efforts. Air Force One has been used and abused for partisan purposes although appropriate share of costs are supposedly in place to reimburse the tax coffers. That does not always make it right. Miltary jets fly at some public expense over stadiums and race tracks. Public funds are used to subsidize wealthy athletes and owners of sports teams and malls through tax breaks and construction funds. Businesses and alumni get tax breaks for contributing to college athletic programs so they can get fancy seats or luxury box seats the general public is probably not allowed to enter and cannot afford. I think Stephanie did a good job in presenting some of the facts and soliciting perceptions of right or wrong use of public facilities and resources. It is an important question with a lot of gray areas for interpretation.By Oldprof
February 21, 2008 4:36 PM | Link to this
Steph, I’m pretty sure that Peter J. was being sarcastic with you. That’s OK, it took Scott quite a while to pick up on the impicit tone of the curmudgeonly blog community—you’ll sensitize to it eventually.By dsto
February 21, 2008 5:15 PM | Link to this
I hear that McCain went to this little room all by hmself to sit on his “little white throne”, not allowing a single person attendance…. How can we allow a man like that a chance at the Presidency? Bodily functions..HA! I not at all suprised to see this [blog] on DDN. Maybe DDN should endorse Castro..I hear he’s out of a job.By Peter J
February 21, 2008 10:39 PM | Link to this
Stephanie I read your ARTICLE on the UD Master Plan and only wonder why you don’t BLOG about it. I think we can agree that UD’s expansion will have a much a farther and vastly reaching affect on this area than Senator McCain renting out a ballroom. Do you think the UD plan is sound? Are they reaching too far? Are they not pushing far enough? What will this mean for current and future students as well as faculty and staff? What will this mean for the surrounding area? P.S. Who told Old Prof about this blog?By Stephanie Gottschlich
February 22, 2008 11:05 AM | Link to this
Hi Peter J. Thanks for reading the master plan story. You have good questions. I should explain a little more about the intended purpose of my blog. This is not an opinion blog - you can check out the paper’s opinions on the opinion blog. I’m not able to post a link to it, sorry about that… but you can find it under the “opinions” tab at DDN’s homepage. My goal here is to present people with insider observations to add additional insight or context to my Dayton Daily News coverage of 8 colleges and universities, and to raise questions for discussion. I want to create a forum here for people to express their opinions, but not mine. So on UD’s master plan, I will report what I see and hear and raise questions, but I don’t have an opinion on whether or not the plan is sound. I care about it because it’s an important issue to the community, and that’s the extent of my motivation. I have covered extensively all the community upheaval over the demolition of Building 26 - but that was before the blog. Also, I’m still learning what people want to talk about on this blog when it comes to higher education. At some point I’ll have a better idea what you folks want to read about - and you can help me set the agenda by given just the feedback you did. I hear you that you want more on the master plan, so I’ll see what I can do. I’ll work up something over the weekend on the master plan - I’m sure there are plenty of observations that I can share. Thanks for propelling forward the discussion.By Kim
February 22, 2008 10:56 PM | Link to this
Sinclair rents out rooms in its conference center, Building 12. It is at the north east edge of the campus. So long as a group pays for services used, behaves professionally and leaves the premises in as good a condition as they found it, anyone is entitled to rent out the facilities. We have the rights to free speech and the freedom to assemble. We are able to meet in private, or hold a press conference. Money is paid to Sinclair for services rendered. That’s that. // What was discussed by a presidential candidate and his supporters behind closed doors (in a secure, convenient downtown location) is none of our business. We can VOTE YES and support the wise fiscal management of Sinclair Community College.By Kim
February 22, 2008 11:05 PM | Link to this
It seems that the financial management of Sinclair is well done, according to excellent business practices. Keep costs down. Bring in as many customers (students) as we can serve well. Maintain the physical plant. Update technology. Envision growth and development. DREAM. PLAN. DO. SUCCEED. Thank you.By SCC student
February 22, 2008 11:11 PM | Link to this
Regarding safety at Sinclair: Sinclair buildings are accessible during open hours. Off-hours use of the buildings is strictly monitored. Security teams make the rounds every evening to “escort” late-working students and visitors outside. They lock up the buildings and set alarms as needed.