Abner Orick

Abner J. Orick was an American politician of the Republican party who served as a member of the Dayton, Ohio, city commission from 1979-1983, 1985-1991, and 1997. He had a reputation for mixed metaphors, jumbled syntax, and asking hard questions. For most of the time he served on the Commission, he was the only Republican.
Watchdog
Orick, for most of his tenure on the city commission the only Republican elected, considered himself a government watchdog and a cost-cutter. In 1979 the editorial board of the Journal Herald referred to him as a phenomenon and an outsider and concluded, "We need an Abner Orick."
He was known as a colorful character who provided good fodder for newspaper coverage. In 1989 the Dayton Daily News called him "good newspaper copy" and said "If Abner Orick didn't exist, we might have to invent him." In 1991 they said having him around was fun, "though it requires work to chase down...the latest off-the-wall complaint," and acknowledged that sometimes he was right.
His style of speech was often commented on. Dayton Daily News editorial writer Scott Heron referred to it as "Orickese," a combination of malapropisms, mixed metaphors, and jumbled syntax, and said it was "thoroughly entertaining." Local common pleas court Judge Mary Wiseman called them "Abnerisms." That same year he suggested individual photographs of all city commissioners should be hung alongside photos of the mayor in city buildings and at the airport, an idea derided by local news who suggested commissioners had more important issues to consider. When asked to comment on accusations of racism by another city commission candidate, he responded, "I am not a racist. I only drive 55 mph." He made controversial phone calls to interested parties during Dayton's bid for a minor league baseball team.
Orick's support was concentrated in East Dayton's primarily blue-collar white neighborhoods where he was called "Old Ab" and "Uncle Abner." Orick said he couldn't drive through East Dayton without hearing someone call out "Give 'em hell, Abner!" Orick was well-known enough in Dayton politics that his yard signs included only his first name. In 1987 the Dayton Daily News said he represented a resentment among working-class whites, who believed Dayton was run for the "downtown power structure first, the black community second, affluent white third, and struggling whites only then." In 1997, after he lost a commission campaign, the Dayton Daily News said of him, "Unlike other candidates, he is almost nobody's second choice. You either love Abner...or you can't abide him" and that, win or lose, he had probably run in more elections than any other Dayton politician.
In 1985, having lost the previous election, Orick began hosting an Access 30 television show about local government called Off the Cuff with Abner Orick, telling local reporters that "at times we'll ask the hard, embarrassing questions" but that his intention was not to "bring up the dirty laundry.", in 1960. He opened the A-1 Trophy Shop in his blue-collar Belmont neighborhood of East Dayton in 1964.

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