CROSSING THE RIVER: About 97,000 Clevelanders voted in the mayoral election yesterday... not terrible, though about 12,000 short of the total in 2001 and 70,000 fewer than made it to the polls for Kerry/Bush in 2004.

Frank Jackson's 55% was almost exactly what the WKYC and Plain Dealer polls were showing last week, before Campbell's ballyhooed "You don't know me" TV ad. She seems to have picked up most of the late undecided voters, but that was nowhere near enough to make the race close. Jackson was sitting on solid, overwhelming support in Wards 1 through 10 and showed significant strength in Collinwood and the "white" West Side wards as well -- he broke 40% in Wards 13, 14 and 19 and got 35-40% in 17, 18 and 20. As the polls suggested, this election was over weeks ago, if not months.

As I wrote yesterday, Frank Jackson will start his mayoralty as an East Side politician with a significant West Side voter base. Conventional wisdom is starting to congeal around the idea that this has nothing to do with him personally, but is simply an effect of lucky positioning as the "not Jane" candidate. This ignores the strong campaigns mounted by some West Side City Council members (notably Cimperman, Westbrook, Brady and Sweeney), as well as Jackson's many house meeting appearances and doorknocking trips over the past six months. A lot of West Side voters have talked with him in settings which demanded less rhetorical polish than the TV debates, and it's evident from the vote totals that many of them liked what they saw.

So Jackson has a rare chance to solidify a base on both sides of the river and both sides of the city's racial divide. But he's not going to accomplish this through leadership deals, task forces, summit meetings, or grand top-down schemes. He can accomplish it by going back out to his voters on both sides of town, listening to them seriously, dealing with them forthrightly and honestly, and offering them effective connections to City Hall and to each other.

Jackson is making history as the first person in over a century to go straight from Council to the Mayor's Office. But he can make some real history and turn his "one city" rhetoric into reality, by being a Mayor who keeps practicing the skills of a good Councilman -- a leader who empowers, networks and supports other leaders of all kinds, in all parts of the community.

Wouldn't that be a refreshing change?