There are lessons to be learned from the Obama victory in Ohio, but those lessons aren't necessarily clear-cut or obvious

The 40-mile strip of I-75 visited by Michael Massing in October

"If President-elect Obama can find a way to win over Deb Erford as well as some of the regulars at the Gathering who may have stayed home on Election Day, the Democrats might succeed in winning Ohio, and the rest of the Rust Belt, for many years to come."

-- the conclusion of Michael Massing's "Obama: In the
Divided Heartland," in the Dec. 18 New York Review of Books

by Ken

"How many Joe the Plumbers are there out there in Middle America?" Rush Limbaugh fumed on my car radio as I drove down Interstate 75 from the Detroit airport toward Toledo. "How many of you are tired of people running down the country?" For the last six years, he declared, the "drive-by media"—his term for the mainstream press—has tried to convince people "that this is a rotten country." States like Ohio, he went on, were so foreign to elite journalists that they needed a visa to visit them.

It was mid-October, and Massing was on his way "to see if I could uncover some of the deeper, underlying currents in the body politic, using as his "laboratory" "a forty-mile strip of I-75 in northwestern Ohio,"which "offered a good cross-section of this key battleground state, stretching from an aging industrial city (Toledo), south to a college town (Bowling Green), down to a classic small town (Findlay)."

It's a long piece, but a terrific one. When it comes to reporting, you have to decide for yourself who you trust, and I've developed a high comfort level with Massing, knowing that: (a) his personal views are at least as leftish as mine, and (b) his personal views don't affect his powers of observation as a reporter. Since the entire piece is available free online, I encourage you to read it. I've been picking it up and setting it down for a couple of weeks now, and was especially intrigued by its conclusions now with all the controversies swirling around the president-elect's appointments and general positioning during the "transition."

The part that I just read concerns Massing's final destination in Ohio, Findlay. Let's focus on that.

A town of 39,000, Findlay has long been a conservative stronghold. Hancock County, of which it is the seat, gave George Bush 68.5 percent of its vote in 2000 and 71 percent in 2004. In 1968, Congress, in recognition of Findlay's patriotic displays, officially designated it Flag City USA, and on national holidays the town is a sea of red, white, and blue. Its esprit derives in part from its affluence. Though surrounded by farmland, it has a strong industrial presence. Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. is headquartered here. Marathon Oil, a part of the original Standard Oil, was headquartered here, too, until 1990, when USX, which had bought it, moved its corporate headquarters to Houston; its refining and marketing division remains in Findlay. Whirlpool, Consolidated Biscuit, Procter & Gamble, and American Standard all have plants in or around Findlay.

To his surprise, he quickly found not one but two Obama voters. A retired truck driver, fed up with the area's economic decline, told him that Findlay "isn't the Republican town it used to be."

As I discovered, Findlay is indeed changing. The Obama campaign had opened a very visible office on Main Street, the largest in memory by a Democratic candidate. Driving through town, I saw many Obama-Biden yard signs. There were many McCain-Palin ones as well, of course, but in my interviews I was struck by the number of people whose long-standing attitudes and attachments were being tested and shaken up by the region's changing fortunes. In department stores and parking lots, restaurants and churches, I kept hearing angry complaints about the endless march of mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, and plant closings. People denounced NAFTA, cursed China and Mexico, and inveighed against the corporations that were so blithely turning their backs on their communities. It was not just the decline in living standards that people were deploring but the resulting disruption of local life, with the loss of tax revenues reducing the support available for essential services. As a result, Main Streets across the Upper Midwest are declining and dying.

"Economics has shaken people out of their traditional patterns," Manning was told by Melissa Spirek, a professor of communication at Wright State University in Dayton, "drawing on the surveys her students regularly make of local residents." And yet, he writes, "The engrained belief in self-reliance and small government remains as well. These two strains -- resentment and traditionalism—seem today to coexist in uneasy and unpredictable competition."

At the Gathering, "an unpretentious but inviting bar and restaurant in the heart of town, where local notables and ordinary citizens mix," Massing had "a two-hour marathon conversation with a rotating array of factory workers, contractors, teachers, a reporter for the Courier, and the two women who owned the place." "As always, the loss of jobs loomed over all else." A lot of people, he discovered, were undecided about who they would vote for.

In the national press and the blogosphere, the category of "undecideds" was routinely ridiculed. With the choice between the candidates so clear, how could anyone remain up in the air? While in Ohio, however, I met many undecideds. Quite a few were Republicans trying to come to terms with a number of discomfiting realities: McCain's uninspired campaign; his choice of an unqualified running mate; the failures of George Bush; the promise of Barack Obama. A number seemed prepared to make the leap into the Democratic camp. Just as many, however, seemed hesitant. They objected to Obama's support for abortion rights. Or feared he was going to raise their taxes. Or thought he might be a Muslim. And, as an examination of the election returns shows, this group proved to be an important factor on election day.

Obama won Ohio, of course, "by 2,784,000 to 2,582,000 votes (51 to 47 percent)." Obama "got only about 45,000 more votes than John Kerry did in 2004," but McCain "got about 275,000 fewer than George Bush did." The turnout was only 67 percent. ("Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner had predicted a turnout rate of 80 percent.") The only plausible explanation, writes Manning: "Many Republicans stayed home on election day." And while "few other states had a fall-off comparable to Ohio's," "the huge surge in national turnout that had been so loudly forecast failed to materialize." Breaking down the numbers, he concludes, "Obama's margin of victory may have owed nearly as much to white Republican voters who failed to turn out as to black, Latino, and young voters who did." ("From both my interviews and press accounts," Massing writes, "it seems clear that the selection of Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential candidate did more than anything else to discourage potential McCain supporters.")

The Republican stay-at-homes amount to a huge disaffected and alienated population whose political loyalties remain up for grabs. Winning them over would seem critical to cementing the type of political realignment the Democrats so ardently crave. The key to achieving that, of course, rests with getting the economy moving again. Obama has proposed spending $50 billion to help states speed the construction of roads and other infrastructure. At a time of soaring deficits, two wars, and a $700 billion bailout, it's unclear where that money is going to come from—especially in view of Obama's promise of broad tax relief. The challenge is especially daunting in Ohio and other Rust Belt states, which are suffering from not only a cyclical downturn but also a long-term structural decline. Reversing this would probably require a bold public-works program on the scale of the WPA. With many Americans still opposed to the idea of activist government, Obama will have to draw fully on his extraordinary political and persuasive skills to pull this off.

Two days after the election Massing called Deb Erford, one of the owners of the Gathering, the bar he had visited in Findlay. Erford, a self-styled "conservative Republican," had been undecided. He wanted to see what her decision was.

"Right up to the last couple of days, I was not sure how I was going to go," she told me. In the end, though, she had decided to go "with policy over character." On such matters as taxes and small business, McCain's views largely coincided with her own, and so she had decided to back him. But, she was quick to add, she was not at all unhappy with the outcome. Obama "might be better for the country—and the world," she said, noting that with his character, charisma, and intelligence, he might be able to move the country forward. In fact, she said, she was very excited: "I thought the younger generation was apathetic, but I was proved wrong. So many young people got involved. That makes me happy."

You've already read Obama's conclusion, which follows immediately from the above. Here it is again:

If President-elect Obama can find a way to win over Deb Erford as well as some of the regulars at the Gathering who may have stayed home on Election Day, the Democrats might succeed in winning Ohio, and the rest of the Rust Belt, for many years to come.

Right now I have more questions than answers, and so for once I'm not going to sound off any more. I'll just say that there are perhaps a number of ways that a political leader might respond to the lessons Massing proposes here.

#