Faith in Bush Unshaken in Rural Ohio Despite Economy

From Yahoo News

Mon Sep 13, 2004

By Ben Klayman

TIFFIN, Ohio (Reuters) - Squinting from a barber's chair, Rod Berlekamp explains why President Bush has his vote locked up for a second straight U.S. presidential election despite job losses in this rural northwest Ohio town.

"The most important thing is we've got to defeat terrorism. We can't have a good economy with terrorism," the retired 72-year-old registered Republican said, while getting his hair trimmed at Varsity Barber Shop.

One chair over, Montie Waters could not disagree more.

"There are too many big corporations putting people out of work," the retired 63-year-old said, explaining why he plans to vote for Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry in November. He supported Al Gore in 2000.

In the 1992 presidential race, Bill Clinton defeated Bush's father by pounding on the theme "It's The Economy Stupid." Again this year, polls show the economy is the top election issue. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Ohio -- with a rich prize of 20 electoral votes -- which may supplant Florida as the biggest battleground state of the campaign.

Ohio fairly accurately reflects economic and voting trends in America. It has major cities that traditionally vote Democratic and rural areas that are usually Republican. It has suburbs ringing Cincinnati and Cleveland and Columbus that could go either way. It has more manufacturing jobs than any state but California, which is three times larger.

No Republican has won the White House without carrying Ohio, and Bush won it in 2000 by 3.5 percentage points. But Democrats smell blood because of the weak economy and the rising trend of corporations "outsourcing" jobs to low-wage countries such as China, two reasons why nearly 230,000 Ohio jobs have been wiped out since 2001.

VOTE SPREAD

In 2000, Bush won 59 percent of the vote in Seneca County, where the picturesque town of Tiffin sits more than 60 miles southeast of the manufacturing center of Toledo. Seneca's unemployment has risen to 10.2 percent from 7 percent when Bush took office in 2001.

While many counties in northwest Ohio are small -- Seneca has a population of only about 58,000 people -- they are a potent base of support for Bush when their vote is combined.

If Kerry is to win the White House he needs to peel away some of Bush's supporters in places such as Tiffin, where few signs touting either presidential candidate are on display. This is proving to be more difficult than expected, with the faith in Bush of many of these rural voters unshaken.

"I'm a Bush man; the reason is his strength and decisiveness," said Dean Distel, a 68-year-old retiree having coffee with friends at the Coffee Break in downtown Tiffin.

Some point to an improving economy. Earlier this month, the U.S. Labor Department reported the U.S. job market brightened modestly in August as employers nationwide added 144,000 workers to payrolls. In Ohio, non farm employment rose 3,600 in July, the fifth gain in the first seven months of the year.

The economic situation is tough in Seneca County, where a anchor employer, American Standard Cos., slashed more than 200 jobs earlier this year at its local plant that makes ceramic bathroom and kitchen fixtures. The Toledo paper said the work was being shifted to Mexico and Asia.

But many voters in the rural northwest Ohio counties blame greedy corporate chieftains rather than Bush for the job losses.

Tony Iriti, Republican mayor of Findlay in Hancock County, which overwhelmingly supported Bush in 2000, said people prefer Bush for his performance on defending the country.

"The dynamic of jobs lost locally will not play a part at all," he said. "What George Bush did for this country after 9-11 ... he stood up for us. Now it's time for us to stand up for him."

Bush has pulled ahead in Ohio by 9 percentage points among likely voters, according to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll released last week. However, the race is a virtual dead heat among registered voters.

A poll for Scripps-Howard TV stations by SurveyUSA had Bush last week with a narrower 50 percent to 47 percent lead over Kerry among likely Ohio voters, with a 3.8 percent margin of error.

CRUCIAL VOTE DRIVES

If Bush's rural bastions hold, Kerry must get more votes in the cities and union towns of Ohio, making get-out-the-vote drives crucial to the outcome for both sides.

"It could just come down to a turnout race and both sides are geared up to turn out their votes," said Rick Farmer, political science professor at the University of Akron.

The Democrats are counting on new voters like Cristy Biller. "President Bush has messed up a bunch," the 23-year-old nanny said while walking in downtown Tiffin, explaining why she was leaning toward Kerry.

The United Auto Workers union, with 180,000 active and retired members in Ohio, is pulling out all the stops to register union supporters who will vote for Kerry.

"My car just turned over 18,000 miles and I got it at the end of April," said Lloyd Mahaffey, the state's UAW chief, speaking about the traveling he's done to register voters.

Others feel Kerry is not hammering at the job issue strongly enough to convince undecided voters.

"Vietnam is done," said Mark Buford, vice president of the UAW's political arm in Toledo, referring to Kerry's defense of his military service in Vietnam. "Let's get over that and talk about the real issues affecting people in this state."