Good News and Bad News from Ohio

[maxrandb]

Recently took a vacation to visit family in Ohio. If my experience at the Stark County Fair (Canton, OH) was any indication, the Dems might pull my once proud Buckeye State back from the edge of the cliff. (FYI - I'm active duty military and have not lived in OH for several years, but I still call Ohio home and vote there via absentee.)

First the Good News: My two "previous Rush listening, Ditto-head wannabe wingnut" brothers have officially switched Party affiliation to Democrat. This did not go over well with my sister-in-law that is active in local Repuke politics. While attending the Stark County State Fair, I happened upon a Republican Booth. The booth was staffed by two folks sportin'' their Summer Teeth (you know, Some are here, Some are there). All you could hear around their booth was the sound of crickets chirping, interrupted briefly by the scream of the nearby tractor-pull. During the 30 or so minutes I was there observing, maybe one or two people came by to get the literature they were passing out. In contrast, the Democratic Party Booth that was about 30 feet away was swarmed by people. I thought for a minute they were passing our free beer, but that was not the case. Another promising sign is that the crowd at the Democratic Booth appeared to be a rather diverse group of people.

Now the Bad News: My one brother said that the Democrats better get off their asses and start running some ads, because all he was seeing were spots for Dewine and Blackwell, and a spot by some organization (can't recall the name) that was calling Ted Strickland "Taxing Ted", complete with dollar signs on the lapel of his suit coat. The more I saw of this, the more concerned I got. I was in Ohio for a total of 10 days, and the Blackwell/Dewine ads on TV had to outnumber the Strickland/Brown spots by at least 10 to 1, if not more. My hope was that the Dems were just holding off until after Labor Day, but the damage from saturation coverage may be already done.

I thought we learned from the Kerry experience that we needed to respond and fight fire with fire. I don't like that we appeared to have held our fire in Ohio.

Anyway, my two cents.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I'm a native Buckeye, but haven't lived there since 1977. I was back

a year ago and decided that Ohio was so changed from the wonderful state I had left, that I wouldn't go back again. Declined to attend my 40th. class reunion in June. I felt like a stranger, an outsider among the people I grew up with....they'd all become narrow-minded, GOP, RW Christians.

[grytpype]

2. I'm from Hartville and it would surprise me to see the area turn Dem.

So your story came as a nice surprise!

[maxrandb]

7. Not sure where Hartvile is

but Canton was recently devastated by the loss of thousands of jobs at Timken Ball Bearing, and Hoover is in such dire straights that they sold off most of the land at the Hoover Estate to someone that is building McMansions.

I think the Canton area was hit especially hard by the Bush/Republican economy. Makes me wonder who is going to buy those McMansions! Oh well, at least gays can't get married.

An aside: I travelled alot of the state. We took the opportunity to take my Daughter (Senior in HS this year) to University of Miami, University of Cincinnati, OSU, Akron and Kent State. Driving toward Dayton, there were frickin billboards with the 10 Commandments on them. One particularly scary billboard simply read "Prepare to Meet Your Maker". It was especially scary since my daughter was driving at the time.

I don't know when Ohio became Wing-nut, Old Testament Christian Crazy. Maybe when they closed all the adult book stores in Columbus :evilgrin:

[POAS]

13. Hartville is in Northern Stark County

It has a high persentage of Mennonite and Amish residents. It is very conservative. If Hartville goes Dem be assured Hell has frozen over.

[Ohio Joe]

3. I watch very little TV

Maybe 2-3 hours a week. I have to say though, the ADs have seemed pretty even to me.

[GOTV]

4. From Cleveland....

... I don't watch TV myself but I can't avoid it at the gym. They're everywhere. In the mornings, when I'm there, I'd say I see about 3 GOP ads for every Dem ad.

I agree that it's disturbing though. I keep hearing we're out fundraising them. So, where are the ads?

[zbdent]

6. Hoping it's for a media blitz

in the home stretch ... however, it wouldn't surprise me if the "media outlets" were charging one rate for Dems and another rate for Repukes ...

Remember, Clear Channel owns a huge number of billboards, a large percentage of the radio outlets (at least in NE Ohio), and the concert venues ...

[LUHiWY]

5. TV?

I watch the damned thing...probably too much and notice exactly what you say....though seeing a few more Demo ads now.

MONEY buys elections?

I notice that the Repug ads speakers have very smooth voices and that the ads are emotionally based.

Oh...there are some "facts" mentioned, but the overall impression is emotional in nature.

Some good psychological/advertising research has been done?????

Emotional appeal beats rational appeal maybe 3 to 1...espec when there isn't too much rationality to begin with?

Boob tubers need to be coddled?

[elaineb]

8. Hilarious description of the two parties' respective booths

Especially the part about the crickets chirping interrupted by the sounds of the tractor-pull. Fair's in this part of the country are deafening!

I'm with you, though. It's both encouraging and discouraging what the political climate feels like right now. And that's exactly the ratio I also would have guessed for Blackwell/Dewine ads Vs. Strickland/Brown ads. Maybe I'm wrong, though, because I don't watch much television, but at least during the Cleveland evening news, I see NOTHING but Dewine ads. I'm hoping, like you, that the Dems are just holding back until closer to the election and that it doesn't either indicate lack of money or a bad strategy.

You want to know what's even scarier (and I'm probably going to catch hell for even saying this), but I heard the recent Blackwell/Strickland debate on the radio last night, and Blackwell sounded far more rational and articulate than I was expecting for someone so extremist. I tuned in late in the debate and only heard a portion of it, but Strickland sounded like he was struggling to articulate what he will do in office, whereas Blackwell was very glib. I hope Strickland can improve his delivery a bit. I just hope Strickland keeps pointing out the extremity of Blackwell's positions, because those who don't know Blackwell might actually think he's a normal guy! It seems to me that avoiding talking about their REAL position on issues is what often gets extremists like Blackwell past inattentive voters. Strickland needs to corner Blackwell and get him to proclaim his far-right positions as often as possible. Luckily, Blackwell seems happy to oblige, at least on the abortion issue.

[maxrandb]

10. Told my Daughter we were going to see the Tractor Pull

and she was like; "Why would I want to watch tractors driving around". Well, one of those 1,600 Horsepower behemoths fired up and she just about jumped 10 feet straight up in the air. She thought they were the John Deer type you see on a farm, not the bored-out, twin 12-cylinder Jaguar engines with nitro fuel type you see at the fair tractor pull.

[semillama]

9. Glad to hear about the fair

And you're right about the TV ads. I did see one finally for Brown last night, but have yet to see a single Strickland ad. We can't assume we have this one in the bag. We need to be more aggressive and not allow the republicans a head start in framing debates.

[Eurobabe]

11. Summer teeth, ROTFLMAO

I thought those only existed in Kentucky?

Thanks for the good laugh. Cincinnati sucked compared to the Liberal North (Cleveland) so glad I am outta there.

[maxrandb]

12. Cincinnati is like Forsythe Georgia with better food

I was stationed there on recruiting duty several years back, and it was wing-nut central, even then. That's why I knew that even though the Dems were running a strong former Marine candidate like Hackett, he had no chance of winning.

How people could look at that witch Schmidt next to Hackett and pull the level for the witch is beyond belief. That race in itself showed me how f$%ked-up Cincinnati is.