Obama in Southern Ohio?

Last night, six local Obama supporters, including me and Mrs. Rat met in my living room in Clay township, a "suburb" of Portsmouth, Ohio to discuss what we can do for Obama. During the primaries, 60 people met in the local Irish Pub to coordinate plans for Obama here in Scioto County. Why 6 when we could have had 60? What does this say about Obama and Appalachian Ohio? And why should those of you who live in Columbus, Cleveland, or across the country in Colorado care about what goes on here in the region (Pike County, Adams County, Scioto County)? How hard is the Obama campaign willing to try here in Southern Ohio, home to mean Jean Schmidt?

First of all, from Columbus, drive south (watch your speed carefully-Ohio is notorious for writing tickets) about an hour and forty five minutes till you get to Portsmouth, Ohio, the major "urban center" in this region and home to Shawnee State University, where Bill Clinton and Ted Strickland effectively campaigned for Hillary Clinton in the spring. When you get here, look around. This is a region of some striking natural beauty and of some surprising and turbulent history from moundbuilders to striking railway workers.

It is also a town where people have moved away just as the jobs have done. It is an area where the ranks of the uninsured and long term unemployed have swelled. It is an area where ancient native American mounds have been built over and people are hungry for jobs at the Piketon A-plant. It’s a place where a grandfathered coke processing plant was shut down when workers struck and the owners didn’t want to have to remodel to meet EPA regulations. Today, one of the largest Wal Marts in the country stands where fire used to bellow into the sky in the dark of night evoking images of dark Satanic Mills and the early Industrial Revolution.

If you live here chances are you work at the hospital, at the A-plant, at the University (like me), at Wal-Mart, at a grocery store, or you drive 40-50 miles each way to Huntington West Virginia or Chilicothe, Ohio.
And that means you spend a few hundred bucks a month on gas for a $15 an hour job-if you are really, really lucky.

There’s a story I am still trying to validate that however Scioto County votes has predicted all the recent elections. It was incidentally true of the last election where it was really close in Portsmouth, but Bush carried the county. The overal margin was about what it was in the entire state and the single vote for Cobb was lost-literally. This is a place where the First Amendment was suspended for a day on the University campus when Bush came to town and a protestor was arrested for allegedly waiving a placard at a crowd of heckling young Republicans.

To be honest, my wife and I could have planned the event better. There are others who might have come had I sent out an e-mail to a few friends. So far, I’ve wondered if I wouldn’t do Obama more good by just keeping my mouth shut-being one of those prius drivin’, occasionally whole earth shoppin’ , imported college professors, but now I see that if we are going to get an Obama organization going here, I’ll have to get off my ass.

But even though there is more I can and will do for Obama, there’s a lot Obama can do for himself here. First of all, he can come here. The rumor is he will come with Edwards to do a "poverty tour." Yes, there is some real bone crushing poverty here. People don’t have much. It’s easy to count my  blessings even though relative to my occupation as a college professor I’m vastly underpaid. When I talked recently about people making $10 an hour as an example in my class, my students-almost in unison-thought $10 an hour was an unrealistic wage. $8 an hour with no benefits is more common. But people are also proud. Being part of a "poverty tour" isn’t what they really want or need. Call it something else. Btw, John Edwards would play well here as a VP choice. So would Kathleen Sebelius with her ties to Ohio.

What does Obama need to do here? First, like I said-he needs to show up. He needs to come here several times. He needs to come see our Walmart and hear about the coke plant that shut down. He needs to listen to people talk about the shoe factories and other factories that went away and aren’t coming back. He needs to come see our floodwall murals-yes, as an outsider I sometimes think they’re corny. But people here are proud of them. These things matter. He needs to understand this is a culture where recognition and familiarity really matter. And he needs to talk to people about health insurance and about job training and about building a new economy. He needs to come and not talk about hope but to talk about concrete issues.

And he needs to get local volunteers telephone lists. My wife and I got zero-I mean zero guidance on what to do at our Obama meeting.
Having said all this I’m glad my wife decided to have an Obama event. I met some interesting local people who are enthusiastic about Obama. One of the attendees stayed after and drank some wine while we talked about mound builders and local machine politics.

I don’t believe Obama can’t do well in Southern Ohio. But let me be frank-if he is going to do well, he will have to do better. But now let me be frank. Some of his people need to get their ass in gear. Word has it Obama dissed a decent Democratic house member from the 14th district. He needs to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the old Vern Riffe machine. He can’t diss it or disregard it-but he also needs to have his own sources and get other viewpoints. He needs to campaign with Ted Strickland and he needs to listen to a lot of voices from around here.
One of the best things Obama could do would be to come here and hold a town hall meeting with McCain. Let’ hear McCain explain how he thinks free trade has been great for Southern Ohio. Let’s hear McCain talk about how great it is to be without health insurance. Let’s hear McCain talk about how foreclosures and predatory lending don’t matter. Let’s hear McCain talk about how the economy is great.