Jane Mitakides
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Jane Mitakides of Dayton, Ohio, is an American politician of the Democratic party who was the 2004 Democratic candidate for congress from Ohio's Third District (Clinton, Highland, and parts of Warren and Montgomery Counties.) A strong effort resulted in Mitakides receiving more votes than top-of-the-ticket John Kerry in more than a dozen precincts in OH-3.
A study of the 2004 precinct level electoral results from the Ohio Secretary Of State show that Mitakides received more votes than John Kerry in only 13 out of the 658 precincts that constituted the 3rd Congressional District in 2004. In these 13 precincts, none of which were in the highly populated Montgomery County, Mitakides' aggregate vote total was a mere 50 votes higher than John Kerry's vote total. Four of the 13 precincts were higher by a mere one vote.
In 2004, Mitakides won 37.71% of the vote, much less than the 41.23% of the vote won in 2002 by Rick Carne who was the Democratic candidate in that year. In Presidential years, Democratic candidates generally do better in Congressional races than in off year elections.
Mitakides was born (maiden name: Louella Jane Helsley) in Dayton, Ohio on March 24, 1949, and is a specialist in strategic communications. She began her advertising career in New York with the Madison Avenue firm of Calderhead-Jackson Advertising. Later, she was the founder of the Helsley Advertising. During her communications career, Ms. Mitakides has won professional recognition including ANDY, ADDY, Hermes and CLIO awards, and was part of a Scripps-Howard Award-winning team. She is also currently also an investor in DRNA, Inc., a leading dental waste recycling and management company.
A life-long activist in the Democratic Party, Mitakides served in various capacities in the campaigns of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards (1994), Bill Clinton's presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996, and Al Gore's presidential campaigns in 1988 and 2000, among others. She has also worked for the Twenty-First Century Democrats and Vote Texas.
She has served in numerous public capacities, including serving as a founding member of the Women's Council of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Small Business Council of the Democratic National Committee. Locally and professionally she has served on a variety of boards, including the Political Action Committee of the Montgomery County NAACP, Women in Broadcasting, St. Elizabeth Hospital Developmen Board (Dayton, Ohio), Women in Leadership, and the board of Women in Communications. She is a former editor or contributing editor to a variety of publications, and active with various historical and patriotic organizations, including the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Mitakides's husband, John, is a dentist in the Dayton area [1] . They have a daughter, Katherine VanderKaay, and a son, Andrew. Katherine (Katie), is a graduate of Hollins University, and holds a Master's Degree from Wright State University. She is currently studying for a doctorate in international relations at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio.) In 2006, Katherine received strong reviews as one of the authors of "Terror in the Holy Land," (Prager Press) an acclaimed study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ms. VanderKaay is an anti-terrorism expert, and her work profiling female Palestinian suicide bombers has been widely recognized. Andrew Mitakides is a student at Wright State University. For more information on Andrew see [2] [posted with Permission]
