I’ve been covering Rep. Turner for years. That’s why fellow Republicans kicked him.

Martin Gottlieb is a retired editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News and a writer for the Dayton Daily News “Campaigns Don’t Matter: How the Media Misunderstands American Politics.“

Rep. Mike Turner reached the pinnacle of his success after a brief tenure as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, but he was fired for not doing enough to “Make America Great Again.”

The seeds of his rise and fall can be seen in his early years. But I certainly wouldn’t predict the fall.

I participated in the creation. He first ran for mayor of Dayton in 1993.

We meet him as he attends a mass interview of all the mayoral candidates. There were six or eight people.

He is the only Republican running in an officially nonpartisan race. The party organization declined to nominate a candidate, calling the city hopelessly Democratic. I wrote an op-ed denouncing the decision. I say Republicans have an obligation to participate. I said an attractive, moderate Republican with a record of civic engagement might win because the Democratic incumbents are politically vulnerable.

Mayor Mike Turner is reasonable and moderate. most

In large-scale interviews, we asked all candidates why they were running. Turner said roughly, well, Martin wrote a column saying that Republicans should put forward a certain type of candidate, and I can’t name anyone else who fits that bill.

Of course, now I am not responsible for his choice of politics as a career. At best, I may have played a small role in determining the timing of his first game, but I doubt it.

Ultimately, our center-left editorial board actively supported him in his mayoral bid.

We do not believe that ideology is an important factor in local affairs. Governance is about competence, ethics, energy and pragmatism.

Turner is clearly the most articulate and impressive of the candidates. He has as many on-paper qualifications as anyone. He seemed reasonable and gentle. He said that in college he supported Democrat Gary Hart for president.

He won.

Newspapers are generally believed to have played an important role. In two terms, he really checked all of the above boxes: competence, etc.

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He was so hands-on and detail-oriented that he often lost my attention during policy discussions. He also has a rough side. There was a lot of friction with the Democratic City Council. The tensions reflect not ideology but mostly accusations that Democrats have made a habit of running city government as if it were their own little property.

The first ideologically divisive issue was gay rights. Turner has disappointed some of us by taking a combative conservative stance. But it must be noted that times have changed, and some putative liberals on the committee and elsewhere agree with him.

In 2001, Turner lost his bid for a third term as mayor.

City Republican Mike Turner heads to Washington

When Turner ran for Congress in 2002, he was seeking the seat that had been vacated for years by Democratic Rep. Tony Hall.

We support Turner as an “urban Republican.” We know he will almost always vote Republican, but we think there will be occasional exceptions and that he will be useful in crafting legislation that takes into account the needs and circumstances of the city.

Ironically, given how far Turner’s career has progressed, he once suggested to me the idea that members of the House of Representatives should stay away from foreign policy and leave it to the Senate.

The background is Tony Hall’s deep involvement in international humanitarian issues such as famine. But it was probably inevitable that representatives from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base would dabble in foreign policy.

In this area, Turner has been a traditional Republican. He has frequently criticized Democrats. But he was an internationalist who often found key commonalities across party lines.

On domestic issues, he has occasionally cast seemingly Democratic votes, such as supporting a minimum wage increase.

He joined a group of relatively moderate House Republicans called the Main Street Caucus. He was involved in non-partisan causes, such as the fight against rape in the military. He focused on the interests of his district and focused relentlessly on Wright-Patt. He pursues a “moderate” identity. Of course, we’re talking about moderate conservatives.

Mike Turner is not a maverick

At one stage, Turner’s district became solidly Republican as a result of redistricting.

As time went on, he seemed to become more conservative. His strong opposition to Obama was a solid vote against the president’s controversial initiatives, starting with a massive bailout after the 2008 economic collapse.

During the Trump administration, he was not a maverick.

He voted against Trump’s first impeachment. He claimed on Fox (a place where he once seemed ill-fitting) that some obscure development derailed the impeachment case. He did, however, criticize the phone call that led to Trump’s impeachment as “bad,” putting him at odds with the man who thought it was “perfect.”

During the second impeachment, Turner claimed that the impeachment process was too hasty (because Trump was about to leave office). He voted against it.

Turner supported Trump in enough controversy that in 2022, when Turner was considering running for Senate, he made a video in which Trump had nice things to say about him.

It seems odd to credit Turner with the vote that certified the results of the 2020 presidential election; he was just doing his job. But it was a defining moment for his standing in the Republican Party. Two-thirds of House Republicans voted otherwise.

Giving Turner too much credit for his support for Ukraine also seems odd from the perspective of just a few years ago. Why doesn’t anyone support Ukraine? Americans did not pay a significant price for this war. We’re not sending troops, we’re not sending a lot of money. We are shipping war supplies that American workers and companies are paid to produce. The money is going to the Americans. Yes, it’s an expense for the government, but come on: most opponents want Increase Defense spending.

Mike Turner is a bit old school

Turner’s rise in Congress was slow.

He’s been there for 22 years; there are only 13 members of the House of Representatives over the age of 20. should Be the chairman of something big. Over the years, he failed to get some of the select assignments he wanted, perhaps in part because he was too soft-spoken. Two years ago, he finally got his chance at Intel.

So it will definitely cause harm.

This balancing act allowed him to be elected twice as a Republican mayor of a city with a heavily Democratic population, made him elected to represent Tony Hall’s old district, and prevented Republicans or Democrats from vigorously challenging his re-election, which might have hindered him. campaign.

Turner’s calling card as chairman is “bipartisanship.” Talk about old school. For this to work for him, Trump would have to lose the election in 2024.

Turner was not someone you would imagine would die politically because of his principles.

He was always eager to join the team. But his commitment to Ukraine stems naturally from his overall foreign policy views, connections and understanding of the situation. He did not run the Intel committee like Trump did because of hostility toward the Intel community. On these topics — as in the 2020 election — his views sound too much like common sense to other members of the Republican Party right now.

Martin Gottlieb is a retired editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News and CaCampaigns Don’t Matter: How the Media Misunderstands American Politics.“

This article originally appeared in The Columbus Dispatch: Is this Ohio Republican too bipartisan for Trump? |Opinion