FISHER DELAYS DECISION ABOUT CAREER

"The best advice I've received . . . was to not make a decision on my own future for the next 60 days," he said. "It will allow me to put the election in perspective and not make a decision emotionally."

Fisher's loss on Nov. 8 to Republican state Sen. Betty Montgomery broke a string of election victories that stretched to 1962, when he became student council president at his elementary school in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights.

In between he spent four years as attorney general and 10 in the Ohio House and Senate.

Fisher's colleagues do not expect him to leave politics.

"Lee has a major role to play in the future of Democratic politics in this state," Senate Minority Leader Robert Boggs told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer for a story published Sunday. "He knows the nuts and bolts of building a political organization, and he loves policy."

Fisher, 43, is keeping quiet about who has contacted him about jobs. He said he will work to help rebuild the Ohio Democratic Party, which lost control of the Statehouse in the November election.

"There is no place to go but up. It will take three or four years to build the party, so we must not be impatient and look for the quick fix," he said.

Fisher says his accomplishments in office included establishing a children's protection section and helping modernize criminal investigations.

For now he will focus on personal goals, including running his first marathon and learning more about computers.

But the reaction of his 3-year-old daughter to his election defeat determined Fisher's priority - spending more time with his family, which also includes his wife, Peggy, and son, Jason, 10.

"Jessica wanted to know if I would still be her daddy," Fisher said. "Lee Fisher and the attorney general are one and the same to her because she was born while I was in office.

"We explained that being Daddy was a lifetime appointment."