It’s late October in Ohio. Thursday’s temperature topped eighty degrees with abundant sunshine, but Friday started out gray and overcast, and temperatures fell all day, with the promise of a bit of rain by evening. That’s Ohio: if you don’t like the weather, stick around a few minutes, it’ll change. The political weather in Ohio is subject to similarly wide variations. It’s an important “swing state” if one wishes to become the chief occupant of the White House for the next four years. According to those who know such things, this year Ohio is the only key to a win. So tonight, here in solidly middle-class North Canton, both Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan are putting on a show in a last ditch effort to win the election by taking this state.
The mayor, apparently a hopeful up and coming aspirant in the party, was giddy with anticipation when he announced the event a few days ago. It would be held on the Hoover Viking’s baseball field on Friday night. The venue was available because the football team played their last game of the regular season against their archrival, Jackson Township’s Polar Bears, at Jackson (apparently even the possible next President couldn’t get the football field, because Hoover has playoff potential, and NO ONE gets to mess up the football field). Football’s close to a religion around these parts. The Pro Football Hall of Fame is just down Interstate-77 in Canton. The Massillon-McKinley game (played on Saturday afternoon, instead of Friday night) is a high school game with national recognition. But Romney-Ryan needs Ohio, so they risked playing against the area’s favorite pastime in order to secure votes.
The turnout was probably as good as they had hoped. Crowds began preparing at the start of the day. Disposable rain ponchos sold out by 10 AM at the dollar store on the corner of North Main Street, a few blocks west of the high school. As evening approached, the crowds began to stream in from all over. The manager of the dollar store is a farm kid from the sticks who describes himself as a “true independent,” but whose father was an old school union man. An atypical collection of Cadillac SUVs, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz automobiles begin to occupy his store’s parking lot, free of charge, for the duration of the event, squeezing out potential paying customers. He expresses regret that he didn’t dress his cashier in a “Big Bird” costume and charge $10 per car, with all proceeds going to save the Public Broadcasting System (Romney has already threatened to eliminate funding for PBS). Republicans may speak with disgust at those Americans seeking entitlements, but apparently no one feels more entitled to do as they please, such as steal free parking from a local retail outlet and make it impossible for actual customers to park, than an upwardly-mobile Republican on a mission to see their candidate. So much for a pro-business stance: yeah, we’re pro-business, unless your business is in the way of our goal for the moment.
Inside the dollar store, the assistant manager adds his regret, wishing that a coin operated box would have been installed on the restroom doors, another very popular destination for the pre-rally crowd with their bladders full of Starbucks. He added that those proceeds could have been donated to Planned Parenthood, another planned funding victim for the candidate down the street. Down the street, a budding entrepreneur was hawking Romney-Ryan T-shirts, buttons and stickers, obtained free from campaign headquarters, for a hefty mark-up. Through the wonders of modern technology, he was able to accept payment at his little cart on the street in the form of credit or debit cards. I wonder how far such technology would have progressed if our nation hadn’t funded the space program back in the 1960’s? So much of the technological wonders that we take for granted today are a direct result of that noble ambition spearheaded by President Kennedy over fifty years ago. But hey, who needs big government now, right?
At the rally, the newspaper reported, The Oak Ridge Boys, with their bizarrely long, gray beards waving in the brisk wind, performed the National Anthem. One of our County Commissioners, a former high school cheerleader-turned-politician introduced a nun that led the opening prayer for the event of mainly Protestant onlookers. Other local politicians took their turn at the podium, building up excitement for the night’s main guests, who had yet to arrive. Back at the dollar store at the corner, the State Trooper who had been dozing in his SUV in the parking lot for hours suddenly stirred and performed the one duty expected of him. He blocked traffic at the intersection for the motorcade speeding on its way from the airport to the baseball field. Then he vanished into the night, freeing up one precious parking space at the store for anyone unimportant enough to wish to shop at a store catering to lower-income types. Inside the store, the manager watched the endless procession of flashing lights speed by and jokingly whispered to his assistant that a well-placed RPG could do a lot of good for the country right now. The independent had momentarily morphed into a would-be anarchist, but only for a moment, and only in his dreams.
Less than an hour later, fireworks filled the sky, announcing the end of the festivities and sending the crowd home filled with hope for a bright future under the leadership of the multimillionaire Leveraged-Buyout-King who would-be President. As the BOOM-BOOM-BOOM of explosions from the pyrotechnic light show rattled the glass at the dollar store, the manager and his assistant watched the procession returning to their illegally abandoned cars in the parking lot of their empty store. None of them came inside to make a purchase, or offer an apology for their rude decision to take what wasn’t theirs. Outside, the store’s employees were saying farewell to one of the night’s last customers, a young man who had spent all day setting-up the event. He was now heading back to clean up the mess, fortified by a candy bar and an energy drink, and facing a sixteen-hour workday, for minimum wage. The assistant manager called out to him: “Say hello to Thurston for me!” The young man stared back blankly. “You know, Thurston Howell III,” he added, hopeful that the youngster would make the connection between the clueless fictional millionaire from TV’s Gilligan’s Island and the candidate who had just spoke. The reference may have been lost on the sugar-amped event worker, but an older woman, walking by and carrying a “Romney-Ryan” sign, was unable to repress her smirk. Good thing she has a sense of humor, because she’ll need it if her candidate gets elected: things don’t look too hopeful for her gender under Romney. Perhaps she’ll be lucky and end up in one of Mitt’s “Binders Full of Women”.
North Canton, Ohio, may seem a strange choice for a Republican rally. Right in the center of the city’s square sits the former Hoover Company, a pioneer in the production of vacuum sweepers. They used to make great products: the area is full of sweepers forty, and even fifty years old, that still work fine. There’s one in the closet at my house. The city lost 2,400 jobs when the plant closed and its jobs were sent to Mexico and China (the same sort of thing that Bain Capital has been doing to American jobs for years). But the city has always been on the conservative side. McCain won North Canton in the last election, although the current President carried the county and the state. The city has one of the two best public school systems in the county, with Jackson Township (that Friday night’s football opponent) having the other one. That night at the rally, the candidate spoke about his plan for a voucher system that would allow people the freedom to send their kids to any charter school they wanted. However, the citizens watching had moved to this city so that their kids could attend one of the best public schools in the area. Go figure.
In his speech, the candidate agreed that the President had inherited a poor economic situation when he took office (yes, only the worst one since the Great Depression). He didn’t mention that it was caused by Republican tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of financial markets, which he has previously promised to do again (worked so well the first time). Romney went on to say that President Obama’s policies were not working to improve our financial condition. However, two days earlier in the local paper’s Business Section, headlines reported that the area’s jobless rate continued to decrease (6.5% currently in our county vs. 8.6% a year ago), as well as a headline that said: “US soon may become the world’s top oil producer.” In addition, the paper reported that a new retail operation was planned for a rural area in the county, and a new extended stay motel (the kind favored by visiting business people) was planned for the county’s main commercial district. If I’m not mistaken, all of those things point to positive growth in the economy. Seems like something must be going right, doesn’t it?
The would-be leaders of the free world were whooshed out of town as fast as they could be after the rally, as their now freezing supporters strolled back to wherever they had abandoned their expensive automobiles. If the staff at the dollar store had been a little less fearful about an adverse reaction from the corporate office, they would have blessed each bumper on the illegally parked cars in their lot with an “Obama-Biden” bumper sticker. But that would have been nasty, and they’re really much nicer guys than that. And even though they work at rather menial positions at a dollar store catering to lower income customers, they may have a better idea of what’s good for the country that they love as anyone attending the rally that night.
Oh, by the way, a little later that night the North Canton Hoover High Vikings defeated the Jackson Polar Bears by a score of 42 to 7, giving them a berth in the high school football playoffs. It’s important to remember things that really matter to a community. I hope that when the residents of my hometown are driving to the polls on Election Day, they will drive past the abandoned factory in the Town Square and think of the good jobs that were sent to foreign countries by LBO specialists like the guy running for president. And I hope they do remember what’s best for them and their country.
Budding entrepreneur at Romney-Ryan campaign event, hawking merchandise from his cart. Handheld technology allows him to accept credit and debit cards.
Oak Ridge Boys perform national anthem at North Canton Rally
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