Friday, February 10, 2012

A small Report from Eastern Ohio

I was impressed with RW’s Precinct report so I thought I’d give a little report on my little corner of the world. While some in my precinct are well to do and some are on food stamps, most of us are middle class. However, ideologically, we are far from average. We are one of the most Conservative precincts in the county. I had no trouble giving out Bush signs in 2004 and in 2006, I am rather sure that we were the only precinct in the county that voted for the GOP gubernatorial candidate. Last November, I teased a GOP election judge from a neighboring precinct asking him why his precinct did not vote as heavily Conservative and my Precinct. He answered “that is because you have a bunch of White Catholics in your precinct.” He himself was a White Catholic so I did not take offense.

In 2008, Mr. Huckabee won my precinct for CD delegates and Mr. McCain won my precinct for statewide delegates. Ohio is unique in that we can split our vote. While Mr. Huckabee won some precincts with regards to CD delegates, he did not win enough to win actual delegates. As an aside, Dr. Paul did quite well in my precinct. During that campaign, there were heated discussions among the various camps. McCainians, Romneyites and Huckabeeite in my community argued with passion for their respected candidates after Church on Sundays and at other social engagement. Many threatened to vote for Mr. Obama if they did not get their way. This cycle, while many of my friends in the neighborhood are either Santorumites, Romneyites, Paulites or Gingrichites, few are actually passionate this time about their choice. There are hardly any lawn signs or heated discussions. I guess most realize that their preferred candidates are not perfect.

As many of you know, while Mr. Santorum is on the statewide ballot in Ohio, he did not get himself on the ballot on the CD level in three Congressional District; the bizarre thing about that I live in one of those districts. So, while I can vote for Mr. Santorum on the state level, unless, I write his name in, I like other Santorumites or honorary Santorumites will hold my nose and vote for Dr. Paul. I think Mr. Santorum is the most popular man in my precinct now, but I wonder if enough people will actually be willing to vote for him once if they cannot vote for him twice. I understand that to varying degrees, most candidates had trouble getting delegates nominated on the CD level in my district, but in the end, the other candidates got on. Mr. McCain used a loophole to get on the Ohio ballot in 2008.

Among other people, we had a Santorum and Paul candidate for delegate at our monthly GOP meeting. As I mentioned before, our county chairman is a Romneyite. However, I have great respect for my local chairman because he is not a Romney extremist nor is he a moderate (though he is not quite as Conservative as I would like.) He is a fair minded person and even though he is a member of the ruling class so to speak by virtue of him being Chairman. He is very friendly to the common people and will go out of his way to shake hands and talk with the grass roots people in the shopping Mall, store and restaurants around town. Further, he does a good job at promoting the local GOP.

At our monthly meeting, the Chairman announced that he met with Romney staff members and Mr. Romney is actually interested in coming to our county. Almost the whole room burst into laugher or at least we while smiling. The Chairman said “I know, I know, nobody like Romney, but it would be prestigious for our county to have a Presidential candidate visit us. We can have an emergency dinner next week.” The lady sitting beside him laughed all the harder. So the chairman said “you would be invited to come to the dinner too.” She smiled and said that she would come for the entertainment value. She added that she thought in was funny that all of a sudden Mr. Romney would visit our little place after Tuesday’s results. The deputy (or vice) Chairman than told a Santorumite towards the back of the room, you can come too.” She just smiled and said that she would come for fun. It is truly hilarious when one thinks about it that a Northeastern elitist would visit small/medium town Midwestern Ohio. When I told my wife after I got home she relied “oh, yippy Skippy, so Mr. I’m a Conservative all of a sudden is going to come down here and pander to us ……….. I suppose that is a little better than some other candidates ……………………………..” Never a dull moment.

Usually, these days I just get into pissing contests with people on line like the Generalismo and MWS, but at the end of the local GOP meeting, I got into a minor pissing contest with the Deputy Chairman. Like many organizations the Deputy is the bad cop, but that is another story. Finally, while the state as a whole has its contests and dog fight. My county GOP has its own pissing contest. As a person, I actually respect the former county Chairman even though he is a RINO, but I support the current chairman in our contest. The former chairman is trying to regain control. Four years ago, a local politician and a Romneyite friend of mine organized who would be the precinct captains throughout the county. This year, he was too busy and thus only a handful of people were nominated for precinct captains. Our chairman can count on at least half the people to support. He needs 50% plus one. So I talked to the Santorum candidate for delegate after the meeting and asked her to be that plus one and support the chairman. She said she would. I did not have to tell her that it would better to have a fair-minded mainstream Conservative Romneyite as our Chairman than a Moderate. BTW, according to my local politician friend, the former chairman truly is a religious bigot (funny how the religious bigots from the Moderate/Liberal wing of the party often get a pass) so we voted last month to relieve him of some of his duties.

6 comments:

Machtyn said...

It really is amazing to me that the Republican party is surging for all of these candidates that FAIL to perform the preparation and work necessary to actually get what they want. Is it more of the "I deserve this" mentality? Do I win just by showing up?

And, yet, we have two candidates who have studied, prepared, and done the work to meet the requirements to become President and be nominated / voted on in every part of the country - but they are despised by a few hard core Republicans who show their hypocrisy at almost every level.

The biggest problem I see is the constant lying about the candidates - all of them, but Romney especially. And this is supposedly from the Right wing media. They were more concerned about generating a contest than actually winning the prize. And so, instead of rallying behind the best candidate, we're mired in division.

Whoever the nominee is, Santorum or Romney, maybe we can win in Nov. It won't be helped by the Right wing media.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you. This reflects the sentiments from the any one but Romney people that post hateful comments daily on Mitts FB page. These are people who are claim to be values voters and the most religious. As a Catholic I am shocked at the anti-Mormon comments coming from them and the born again Christians. They carry so much hate in their hearts for Mitt. This goes far deeper than any of his policies. Rick Santorum is the next conservative to line up and get the anti-Mormon vote. It is nasty. I am afraid that this will harm the Republican party because they don't seem to care about who can beat Obama. These are suppose to be forgiving people.

Ohio JOE said...

Mr./Mrs. Anonymous:

What dream world are you living in.

Eldon said...

Take another read of your post, it tells us so much about your regions insecurities and tribal mentality. It would be funny if not so sad.

I tire of the supposed conservatives who say Romney is ignoring us, and then when he wants to drop by he's pandering? If I hadn't known you are in NE Ohio I would be questioning your intelligence, but since you are it needs not be discussed.

This strikes me as more juvenalia from purported conservatives that are falling for class envy/tribalism at the expense of true conservative principles. If you want Romney to throw on some dirty jeans, meet you for breakfast at the local Cracker Barrel, and drop all his 'r's as he talks to you, that would be pandering.

Having lived in NE Ohio until I couldn't stand the poor minded tribalism of the place, your post reminded me of why Ohio's in the toilet. Romney's a winner trying to gain the approval from a lot of people that haven't won much of anything.

Time for a gut check from supposed Repubs, do you support and carry forward a conservative standard, or do you degenerate into the populist muck of Dumbocrats and the 'down home' "conservatives" you mischaracterize yourselves as?

Eldon said...

I meant dropping his 'g's. Enjoy the garden Eden that is E Ohio.

Ohio JOE said...

You crack me up Eldon, the real tribal mentality is that you are trying to pretend that you are from the Conservative tribe when in fact you are not.