In 1970, Springer went on to seek office for the first time when he campaigned against five-term Republican Rep. Donald Clancy in the 2nd Congressional District. The Democrat would recount in 1999, he’d decided to run “as an anti-war candidate,” and he’d attribute his success in winning the Democratic nomination to the killing of four Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard the day before the primary.
But Springer was very much the underdog in what was a heavily Republican constituency that, according to analyst Kiernan Park-Egan, had favored President Richard Nixon 51-36 two years earlier (segregationist George Wallace took 8%). However, his campaign helped him forge some key alliances.
Longtime state party official Tim Burke said in 2003, “Jerry could walk into a VFW hall and talk to a bunch of vets about why he was against the war,” adding, “He didn’t convince all of them to march in the streets, but they came away with a better understanding and a lot of respect for him.” Springer’s 56-44 defeat marked the closest race in Clancy’s career up until that point (the congressman would ultimately lose in 1976), and he parlayed that performance into a victory the next year for the City Council.
Springer, who was still known at the time as Gerald Springer, quickly demonstrated a knack for generating news. In one memorable 1973 incident, Cincinnati had just taken control of its local bus system; to celebrate, the councilman commandeered a city bus and drove it around. “They asked him why he did it,” remembered one observer, “and he just said he always wanted to drive a bus.”
However, his promising career seemed to come to an end the following year when he announced his resignation hours after the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that an unidentified “Cincinnati politico” was under investigation in both Ohio and Kentucky and that sex workers had been interviewed in connection with the matter.
The married councilman soon acknowledged that he’d contacted the FBI himself out of guilt and informed agents that he’d written a pair of personal checks to pay for services at a massage parlor. Springer’s colleagues, who had planned to appoint him mayor following the 1975 elections—the city only started directly electing its chief executive following the passage of a 1999 ballot measure—initially rejected his resignation, only to reverse course days later. WCOP’s Greg Noble wrote in 2016 that not only were council members jockeying to become mayor in his stead, but that the county’s top prosecutor, Republican Simon Leis, had told Democratic leaders he’d prosecute Springer if he stayed on.
But Springer was never charged, and he won back his seat the following year after running ads in which he addressed the scandal directly, a strategy he’d try out again years later on a much larger stage. “A lot of you don’t know anything about me,” he said during that campaign, “but I’ll tell you one thing you do know: My credit is good.” Springer finally got to become mayor for a year starting in 1977, exclaiming, “When I think of being flat on my back three years ago, having this happen is almost unbelievable.”
After claiming one more term on the City Council in 1979, Springer decided to leave the body two years later to run for governor, in what proved to be a difficult 1982 primary against former Lt. Gov. Richard Celeste and Attorney General William Brown. Springer began the contest looking like he’d only be a minor player, but he unexpectedly displaced Brown for the second-place spot in the polls after running ads in which he jokingly suggested that blowing up bridges to Kentucky would protect state jobs and that Ohio should build a dome to guard against winter.
Brown, though, gained traction after airing his own ads attacking his two rivals as too liberal, and Springer was once again relegated to third place. But Brown’s own pollster, Patrick Caddell, inadvertently got his client into trouble when the news broke that he’d falsely told respondents in a survey that Springer had been “arrested on a morals charge with three women in a motel room” and wrote a bad check back in ’74. Brown blamed Caddell, who would eventually become an ardent Trump ally, for the backlash, but Springer felt compelled to respond himself.
The former mayor made national headlines with an ad in which he spoke directly to the camera and said, “Some nine years ago I spent time with a woman I shouldn’t have. And I paid her with a check.” He continued, “I wish I hadn’t done that. And the truth is, I wish no one would ever know. But in the rough world of politics, opponents are not about to let personal embarrassments lay to rest.” After questioning why the matter had anything to do with the governor’s race, he said, “Ohio is in a world of hurt. The next governor is going to have to take some heavy risks and face some hard truths. I’m prepared to do that. This commercial should be proof.”
Springer’s team said that response to the ad was “overwhelming,” while the candidate himself said of his risky move, “[Y]ou have to remember I’m not running for God. I’m running for governor.” But it wasn’t enough, as Celeste beat Brown 42-37 while Springer finished with just 20% of the vote. Celeste went on to win that fall while Springer became a local TV news anchor—a position that would eventually morph into his most famous role, host of the “Jerry Springer Show.”
Springer, though, never quite gave up on his dream to win statewide office even after he made millions as his audiences chanted “Jerry! Jerry!” in his direction. He mulled bids for the Senate for 2000 and 2004 and another campaign for governor for 2006, saying during one deliberation, “I connect with a whole bunch of people who probably connect more to me right now than to a traditional politician.”
His name surfaced one more time in 2017 when he again expressed interest in running for governor, and Insider even reported that unnamed “influential Ohio Democrats” wanted him to go for it. It didn’t happen, but Springer gave a hint of what that campaign could have looked like that same year when he said of Donald Trump, “His constituency is basically mine. These are fans of the show. I could be Trump without the racism.”
