69% in Ohio Poll Say Gov. Celeste Should Not Run in ’88

Ohio Gov. Richard F. Celeste, who has been inching toward joining the 1988 Democratic presidential field, got some disillusioning news Friday.

According to a newly released opinion poll, more than two-thirds of the Democrats here in Cuyahoga County, the biggest Democratic stronghold in the state and Celeste’s home county, think that he should forget the idea of seeking the presidency.

The release of these survey results, prominently published in Friday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer, could hardly have come at a worse time for the White House ambitions of the governor.

Timing Seen Negative

The poll, suggesting a serious Celeste weakness in his own backyard, made headlines just as the Assn. of Democratic State Party Chairs was meeting here, a gathering that Celeste planned to use as a launching pad for an exploratory presidential campaign trip. Celeste made a welcoming speech to the chairmen before leaving on a trip to Iowa.

Jerry Austin, who managed Celeste’s 1986 reelection campaign, said the poll would have no bearing on the governor’s ultimate decision on whether to run for President.

This episode served as a reminder of an old political adage--all politics is local, and also personal. Behind the publication of the poll figures was a long and bitter feud between Celeste and a powerful Ohio Democrat, Tim Hagan, president of the County Board of Commissioners, who paid for the poll. The poll, which asked about Democratic presidential preferences, showed civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo as the favorites of those questioned.

Animosity Dates to ’82

The animosity between Hagan and Celeste goes back to 1982 when Hagan backed one of Celeste’s opponents for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Celeste got even at the 1984 Democratic convention, Hagan complains, when the governor refused to give convention floor passes to Hagan’s supporters. Hagan had been chairman of the Mondale 1984 Ohio campaign for the nomination.

Ohio Party Chairman James Ruvolo, a Celeste supporter, called the poll a “cheap shot” and accused Hagan of conducting a vendetta against Celeste. But Hagan said: “I think ‘vendetta’ overstates it. Let’s just say it was Machiavellian.”

Without denying his hard feelings for Celeste, Hagan argued that the main purpose of the poll was to survey Democratic voter sentiment at a time when the presidential campaign was still taking shape.

The figures in the poll, taken by Decision Research Corp., a firm that has also polled for Celeste in the past, were not likely to help Celeste’s quest for support.

When asked if Celeste should run for President in 1988, 69% of the 502 registered county Democrats surveyed said no, 21% said yes, while the rest were not sure. By contrast, 42% said they thought Ohio Sen. John Glenn, who ran in 1984, should try again in 1988, against 41% who said no and 17% who were not sure.

When asked to choose between Glenn, whom Hagan has been trying to persuade to run again, and Celeste for President, 54% backed the former astronaut while only 23% backed Celeste.

Alleged Infidelity Cited

Local Democrats said that the poll appeared to reflect erosion of his strength in the state because of published reports in June that he had extramarital affairs with three women during the last decade. At that time, Celeste said that his personal life was “between me and Dagmar (his wife), between me and my kids. That’s where it ought to be. That’s where it is. That’s where I intend to keep it.”

Celeste has said that he would not let these allegations interfere with his possible presidential candidacy.

Celeste is constitutionally barred from running for governor again when his present term is up in 1990, and local Democrats say that he views a presidential campaign as a way to increase his stature nationally and help him gain a possible Cabinet post, if not the presidency itself.