Cleveland conducts mayoral election

CLEVELAND - Ten candidates ran in the city's first competitive mayoral election in more than a decade yesterday, a campaign that voters said was hurt by the crowded field and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

By midafternoon, about 25 percent of the city's 250,000 voters had voted. Election officials had predicted Monday that turnout could be as low as 30 percent citywide.

The top two finishers in the nonpartisan primary will run in the Nov. 6 general election.

"I thought the campaign was terrible," Dolores Arlow, 55, said after voting at an East Side elementary school.

With 10 candidates appearing at every major event, it was impossible to get any in-depth debate about key issues such as education and crime, Arlow said. "I don't think a lot of people really heard the candidates."

Mayor Michael R. White, the city's longest-serving mayor, announced in May that he would not run for a fourth four-year term. The two best-known politicians in the city - U.S. Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Stephanie Tubbs-Jones - then declined to run.

That left a field of lesser-known candidates struggling to build name recognition. No Republican joined the race in the heavily Democratic city of 478,000 people.

About three weeks before the election, candidates put their campaigning on hold for a week because of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Candidates pulled their ads from radio and television and canceled debates and public appearances.

Once campaigning resumed, the tone was subdued.