Posted on 05/08/2004 11:55:19 AM PDT by Fizzie
Spotlight shines on John Ramsey Political ambitions draw admiration, head-scratching
By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News May 8, 2004
CHARLEVOIX, Mich. - The dark questions long surrounding the murder of JonBenet Ramsey have been joined by yet another perplexing riddle.
Why?
Why would John Ramsey, who with his wife has been battered by withering media and public scrutiny since his youngest child was found murdered in his basement - in a brutal and bizarre slaying that remains unsolved - willingly plunge back into the spotlight?
And why would he choose politics, where even candidates with spotless reputations routinely find themselves scrutinized - even demonized - in the harshest fashion?
John Bennett Ramsey, a 60- year-old former millionaire and corporate king, once under suspicion in his own child's murder, with a wife who is again battling cancer, will tell the world why on Tuesday.
That's when he will announce his intention to run for the Michigan state legislature as a Republican from the 105th House District.
Why?
At a Northern Michigan Republican Women's Club luncheon Friday in Petoskey, his wife offered this explanation.
"His heart has been so broken, and now it is mending," said Patsy Ramsey, a former Miss West Virginia who at age 47 still is in possession of an electric presence that commands rooms.
"He is just passionate about making the rest of his life worth something," she said.
As she spoke, John Ramsey was nearby, shaking hands with the 20 or so GOP men and women in the room.
Moments later, he would have to rush off to help son Burke, now 17, with a minor crisis related to tonight's Charlevoix High School prom.
"He wants to give something back. I've heard him say it 100 times," said Patsy Ramsey. "I think he will be incredible in this position."
Any political candidate has an uphill climb. It can only be more so for a man and a family who've repeatedly lamented their loss of privacy since the evil that struck their home on Dec. 26, 1996.
As John Ramsey departed to make his way back to Charlevoix, Emmet County Republican chairman Jack Waldvogel quietly asked, again, the question that's becoming as common around here as how was your winter?
"I just wonder, 'why?' " said Waldvogel. "I don't get it."
"Unfortunately in life, people die," said John Haggard, an ardent Ramsey supporter and chairman of the Charlevoix County Republican Party.
"Unfortunately in life, people are killed. But you don't just stop. You gotta go on."
Haggard is one of those helping John Ramsey to do so.
He counseled Ramsey throughout his decision-making process, encouraged Ramsey to run, and already has written Ramsey's campaign a $500 check.
Haggard's business is festooned with framed paintings of wildlife and stuffed trophies. His bookshelf features just one title: Right From the Beginning, by conservative politician and commentator Patrick J. Buchanan.
Asked Ramsey's motivation for starting a political career now, Haggard leaned back, laced his fingers behind his head and shrugged.
"I can't answer that," said Haggard, a big man who favors speaking in bold strokes.
"Why does anybody get into politics?"
But in the event of a Ramsey win, Haggard believes he knows what voters will get.
"I think he's going to be an asset to northwestern Michigan and the state of Michigan, with his knowledge of how to run a business and his ability to work with the people of the area."
Ramsey's family has vacationed and owned homes here for many years.
But they moved here full-time only last fall, and John Ramsey's Michigan driver's license is just seven months old.
Haggard speaks, however, as if Ramsey not only could have a political future here, but a long one, at that.
"A speaker of the House from this district, from Charlevoix, sure would be nice," said Haggard, a smile dancing in his eyes.
From admiration to disgust
"Charlevoix Women to Publish Guide to Web Sites."
That was the modest headline way back on page 13 this week of the Charlevoix Courier, the local newspaper, which has a sailboat as part of its masthead.
The upbeat business story is accompanied by a picture of the featured business' three smiling partners; most prominent, seated in front, is Patsy Ramsey.
Particularly notable about the story, perhaps, is what it leaves unstated.
It doesn't mention that she and her husband once were placed by Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner under an "umbrella of suspicion" in JonBenet's murder - or even that there was a JonBenet, who once collected a beauty pageant crown right in this little town.
The article doesn't touch on the subject of cancer, either. Patsy Ramsey battled ovarian cancer three years before JonBenet's death in 1993 and was treated for its recurrence in 2002.
Patsy Ramsey confirmed that it has again returned during an appearance last month at a luncheon for cancer survivors and their supporters in Huntington, W. Va., and did so again in an interview Friday.
"I've been dealing with this since Burke was in second grade," she said. "Every time it raises its head, we just need to swat it down again."
The local paper's story doesn't even mention the identity of her husband, the man whose campaign office is currently located in the same nondescript office space as Patsy Ramsey's latest venture, WebBook, which specializes in Web site development for local businesses.
John Ramsey is not granting interviews to non-Michigan media until at least Tuesday, when his campaign will be officially launched with an old-fashioned rally replete with hot dogs, soda pop and the local school's jazz band.
"We just want to get enough votes in four counties to win," John Ramsey said, stressing that his campaign is a local event, not a national crusade.
As he signed campaign letters to his potential constituents Thursday afternoon, there were no photographs visible of JonBenet.
Missing were physical vestiges of any kind of the tragic event that made her name known, remarkably, throughout the world.
But in plain view there was a Holy Bible. There are two framed pictures of the sailboat he has since sold, "Miss America." On the tidy desk is a brass elephant bookend, an apparent tribute to his Republican Party. Ramsey was registered unaffiliated in the six years his family lived in Boulder.
And there was one other book in Ramsey's office: Living Beyond Your Lifetime: How to Be Intentional About the Legacy You Leave, by Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
An endorsement on that book's back cover, by another well-known Republican, George W. Bush, says "it effectively makes the point that service to others, and thinking about generations to come, is a lot of what life is all about."
A local journalist, Laurie Lounsbury of the Gaylord Herald-Times, enjoyed a social evening with Ramsey in March, near the time his plans became public.
Ramsey told Lounsbury he was moved by the countless letters his family received after JonBenet's death, by the realization that many people had endured personal tragedies but lacked the Ramseys' resources with which to cope.
"He said, 'I've been pretty lucky in life,' " Lounsbury recalled. " 'I've made a little money. I know a little something about business, and I think I can give something back. I've been fortunate in life, and I did not realize, until JonBenet's death, that there's nice, caring people out there, in poor circumstances.' "
Lounsbury doubts that Ramsey will have to reach too far into his pocket to fund his campaign. By virtue of his name, she said, "Every time he breathes, he gets ink."
Primary opponent Jeff Garfield planned to spend $35,000 before Ramsey joined the field. Now, he's budgeting $70,000.
"What John is going to have to spend," Lounsbury added, "is sweat. He's going to have to knock on door after door."
Not everyone in Ramsey's district cares for him, however.
"I don't think that he has a prayer, to tell you the truth," said Charlevoix resident Russ Mize, a Republican. "Because when they (area residents) hear his name, they're disgusted."
He paused as he finished up his breakfast at Judy's, a no-frills Charlevoix diner where local politics often get hashed out over hash browns.
"I know I'm disgusted. But I can't speak for everyone."
Mize then uttered a phrase often voiced, especially by people who choose to say far less about Ramsey than Mize did: "I have to live in this town."
Name recognition a value?
Charlevoix claims a population of only about 3,000 while in the grips of its relentless winter but 20,000 in the summer. Locals joke there are two seasons, winter and the Fourth of July.
And there's this one: Summer's going to be on a Tuesday this year.
It is a small enough town that visitors with notepads and cameras find they have a hard time arriving anywhere unannounced; somehow, word of their itinerary precedes them.
So John and Patsy Ramsey are well known in Charlevoix - and were well known before they became fodder for books, talk shows, supermarket weeklies.
As Mize conceded with a laugh, "You can't say that voters won't recognize the name."
That may be John Ramsey's greatest advantage.
But it also may be John Ramsey's downfall.
Political pundit Larry Sabato makes no claim to any specific knowledge of Michigan northwoods politics.
But Sabato, author of Sabato's Crystal Ball Web site and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, can't imagine Ramsey's baggage not dragging him down and out of the race well short of the finish line.
"There no way," said Sabato. "If he picked Louisiana or New Jersey, I might have seen it. They're inclined to elect unusual people. But not Michigan. It's very stable. That's Gerry Ford territory."
Sabato compared the situation to former California congressman Gary Condit, who lost a re-election bid after falling under public suspicion in the disappearance of former Washington, D.C., legislative intern Chandra Levy.
"I'm not saying either one's guilty, but there is a very dark cloud hovering over their heads - both of them, Condit and Ramsey - and neither of them has been fortunate enough to have the controversy cleared."
Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor and frequent commentator on popular culture, sees the Ramsey candidacy as exemplary of two things about American society, one positive and one that he calls "more troubling."
On the upside, it's an affirmation of the innocent-until-proven-guilty code we live by.
"Although he has been a suspect in this hugely publicized murder case, through the wheels of justice he has never been charged or convicted, and therefore should be completely open to do whatever any other American citizen can do, including running for office," said Thompson.
But disturbing to Thompson is that it is only the murder, and the controversy, that gives Ramsey what Thompson calls his "cultural equity," his "celebrity."
"He would not be the first celebrity, from P.T. Barnum to the last governor's race in California, whose brand recognition has gotten them into office," Thompson said.
"But getting to the point where he has gotten, maybe that shouldn't be the most important thing that gets him there."
A claim of being 'cleared' Any political campaign generates letters to the editors of the local papers, and the mail on Ramsey already has started.
The heading on an April 26 letter in the Lansing State Journal read "Ramsey suspect."
It quoted from the Nov. 26, 2001, deposition of Boulder Police Chief Beckner, taken in the federal lawsuit filed by Boulder journalist Chris Wolf, who sued the Ramseys for naming him as a suspect in JonBenet's murder. That lawsuit was dismissed on summary judgment by U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes of Atlanta on March 31, 2003.
In that ruling, Carnes said that, based on her review of evidence submitted by lawyers for the Ramseys and Wolf, it was more likely that JonBenet was killed by an intruder than by Patsy Ramsey, as Wolf had alleged.
The letter to the editor quoting Beckner's deposition, sent by Mary McAuliffe of Okemos, Mich. - the town where John Ramsey grew up - contained this exchange between the police chief and an attorney.
"Internally, John and Patsy are considered suspects," Beckner testified.
"Both of them?"
"Yes."
"Are considered to have probably been involved in the death of their daughter?"
"Probability, yes."
"Has anyone else ever attained that status of probably involved?"
"No."
McAuliffe's letter concluded by pointing out, as several legal observers in Colorado did at the time of Carnes' ruling, that the federal judge had not reviewed the entire 40,000-page criminal file, only the documents and evidence made available by the civil case lawyers.
Beckner this week did not return calls seeking comment about the Ramsey campaign.
Boulder District Attorney Mary Keenan followed Carnes' ruling on April 7, 2003, with her own statement in which she concurred with the judge, and said that since the Ramseys had been investigated exhaustively, it was time to direct the thrust of the investigation toward the intruder theory.
But Keenan never said the Ramseys would be excluded from further scrutiny.
Ramsey's campaign literature, in summing up his life and career, carries a bullet-point which reads, "Finally cleared by Federal Judge and District Attorney."
Keenan, contacted Friday, declined comment on the contention in Ramsey's campaign literature that he has been cleared by her office.
She also declined to comment on Ramsey's remark last week to a Michigan reporter that prosecutors have told him "we have the killer's DNA."
Further, she declined comment on his candidacy.
Democrat could look good
Ramsey will face at least four primary opponents Aug. 3 in this district that encompasses most of four northern Michigan counties.
Registration runs about 63-37 percent in favor of Republicans, and so the belief is that whoever claims victory in August, will be the victor Nov. 2.
The incumbent, on his way out the door due to term limitations, is Rep. Ken Bradstreet.
Bradstreet, a by-the-book Republican who is solid on the anti-abortion, anti-gun-control issues that win election in this region that some Michiganders call "the sticks north of Route 46," said he will support a Democrat if Ramsey wins the primary - providing he can identify one who honors his key positions.
"In the last couple of months, I've probably read 1,200 to 1,500 pages of material on John Ramsey, including two books," Bradstreet said over coffee in a Gaylord chain restaurant. "I have talked to John Ramsey, but I didn't talk to him very long."
"I have two serious reservations about John Ramsey," he continued. "One is, he's new to the district. They've only lived in Michigan a few months. And I have some real questions about whether there was some involvement" by a family member in the death of JonBenet.
Ramsey has acknowledged in many interviews with Michigan reporters that the mystery surrounding his child's death will have to be addressed early in his campaign - and that he hopes he can then put it behind him.
Gina Whitney, co-owner and manager of Whitney's Oyster Bar in downtown Charlevoix, calls herself a friend of the Ramseys and an undecided Republican voter.
While she's leaning heavily toward Ramsey, Whitney admits surprise that he is diving back into the maelstrom.
"Doesn't that say something about them as individuals, though?" Whitney asked. "They have nothing to hide.
"I don't know if I, myself, would put myself through it. It shows the tenacity of the individual. And I respect that in any person."
As Whitney is speaking, choosing her words, carefully, Ramsey campaign manager John Yob is spotted near the eatery's front door.
Yob, like his candidate, is declining interviews with non-Michigan media. Asked about polling he has done which reportedly proved favorable for Ramsey, he won't discuss numbers.
"If I didn't think he was going to win, I wouldn't have advised him to run," Yob said, before excusing himself and heading for his car.
It's possible, perhaps, that Ramsey may shock the world - or northern Michigan - and announce Tuesday he won't seek office, after all.
To a photographer this week, he said, "In business, I never make a decision until I absolutely have to."
But at the Petoskey appearance Friday, when John Ramsey's early departure left Patsy Ramsey to speak for him, she might have tipped their hand.
"I'm not supposed to say anything official yet," she said, smiling mischievously. "But unofficially, we've got a lot of this stuff sitting in our living room."
She was fingering a large red, white and blue button on her ivory-colored suit jacket. It read, "Elect John Ramsey for Michigan House of Representatives."
brennanc@com or 303-892-2742
Copyright 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
Incredible is right. No credibility whatsoever.
I'm guessing they do. I'm further guessing it's too close to the victim's DNA to be useful evidence.
Maybe the Dems are putting him up to it!
Why would ANYONE support or vote for John Ramsey for ANYTHING?
Hey, Mr. Ramsey....do yourself a favor and call "Meals on Wheels".
He heard that politicians can get away with murder?
Family Values????
Just kidding.
Very disconcerting.
Very.
Not that others in the past haven't put enough paragraphs in.
But 117 is a little much.
Really.
Maybe his constituents aren't interested in electing someone to be their "daddy", but instead want a voice for their views heard in Congress.
This puts a safe republican and conservative seat and makes it up for grabs.(and some of them have voted for Rat Stupak for Congress) I'm sure the dems will have no problem running a pro-2a/pro-life dem here. A Jim Barcia dem would be a perfect chance to take on Ramsey.
This seat covers Emmet, Charlevoix, maybe Antrim, and Otsego Counties. It's a mix of woods, outdoors country, rural towns, and some big money on the coast of Lake Michigan. A lot of vacation homes and cabins.
It's also heavily religious and pro-2a and pro-life. CHARACTER matters heavily in this area. A semi-low profile workmanlike republican who goes out and "does his job" without major fanfare is the type of guy who wins here.
I don't think he'll get past the primary. I doubt there is enough crossvote to do that since I can't see a big money carpetbagger getting enough votes "upcountry" or even on the lakefront by republicans.
If he gets past the primary though, this spot will go dem. It would be a reverse of Rostenkowski in 94.
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