We had an organizing event here Saturday, at a diner.
Angela Zimmann was there, she’s running for the US House:
And John Vanover was there, he’s running for the Ohio legislature. That is his first wife standing there with him:
We talked about a lot of things, but I think I can safely say the GOP primary is good for Democrats, based solely on this tiny and unrepresentative sample. It’s at least as reliable as my recounting an imaginary conversation with a cabdriver, so let’s just go with it. They’re really, really enjoying watching the GOP candidates duke it out, particularly the ultra-brilliant and learned Professor Gingrich, because they (of course) remember the old (real) Newt Gingrich, and not in a good way, either. A real walk down memory lane for them.
One other thing we talked about is how a local business owner has all but completed his conversion from Republican to Democrat. It isn’t new this change of heart, he publicly endorsed Obama in ’08, but he hadn’t really joined with Democrats until this year, when he came to our banquet and agreed to meet with all of our candidates. It’s a nice fit for us, too, because this business owner is not just a big employer, he’s a big union employer.
This public conversion is important to us, because we believe we need someone who is trusted who might make it okay to vote for a Democrat, if a disgruntled Republican or wishy washy independent was leaning that way anyway. We need someone to go first.
It’s especially interesting that our recent convert is sounding more and more like Woody Guthrie with each passing day because he is, in fact, a wealthy person. He and his family live quite modestly and unremarkably here locally, he lives close to where I live, but he also has three other homes in some really nice places. And a plane. He has a plane.
schrodinger's cat
My mother’s friend used to have a plane, a two seater. Her son was taking flying lessons, that’s why they had it. They were not fabulously wealthy either.
ETA: Great work Kay, and thanks for keeping us in the loop.
MikeJ
Of course one of our local trolls basis his entire commentary on the belief that anybody who has ever voted for a Republican should never, ever, ever get to vote for a Democrat. Which is his imagination will keep the party pure, if somewhat smaller than it should be.
Kay
@MikeJ:
John, the candidate, is also a former Republican.
Jeff Boatright
Hell, _I_ have a plane and I’m a poor professor and my wife is a public defender.
Now, mine was built by a farmer and a shop class full of teenagers in upstate New York out of wood and fabric and is otherwise not much use for campaigning – it cruises at 70 and seats two, uncomfortably.
But still, _I_ have a plane…
Violet
One of my friends had a plane, also a two-seater, and was far from wealthy. He lived in the cheapest possible place he could find (a room in someone’s home). He did have a steady job, but it didn’t pay a lot. He spent everything extra on the plane. Finally had to sell it when he wanted to go to grad school. He certainly didn’t own three homes in addition to his primary home.
I love hearing this kind of thing. I really hope Newt and Palin and every other Tea Party type keeps hammering at Mitt. I wonder if Colbert is going to announce that a vote for Gingrich is a vote for Cain is a vote for Colbert, since Cain endorsed Newt?
Violet
First and only? Or first of many?
geg6
Here in the heartland (and man, can I just say how much I hate that formulation as the descriptor for everything between the coasts and not in Dixie?), almost all of the self-made wealthy people I know are either Eisenhower Republicans or actual liberals? Even the presidents of the local banks! It seems, often, that it is only those in the financial services industry (large accounting firms, brokerages, financial advisers and managers), along with the fundies and the working class stealth racists/bigots, who seem to make up so much of the GOP base here.
The big problem is that huge bunch of working class stealth racist/bigots. They are the old Reagan Democrats (or would have been had they been alive/adults at that time) who aren’t union members (I have found union members to be uniformly voting for Dems, at least in the last decade or so anyway).
kay
@Violet:
They really had a lot of fun with it. I was bothered by it, all the, ya know, HATE and all, but not them. They’re watching and laughing.
kay
@Violet:
It’s first and only. I was kidding.
slag
Show-off.
Mudge
Your new convert is, quite simply, neither a sociopath nor a hater. There is no longer room in the Republican Party for such people. They are gradually realizing that.
rikryah
this convert sounds like a guy who worked for what he has, but understands that without a strong middle class, this country will fail to be America.
Chris
@geg6:
ROFL – now THAT’s funny. I guess it’s not especially surprising, either…
Redshift
Thank you, Kay for your work convincing people who should be voting Democratic to actually do it, instead of just bemoaning the fact that they don’t!
Paul in KY
Appreciate your great work, Kay. Please tell John that all he has to do is tell the truth. It will flow easy from his lips & will definitely contrast with whatever lies the GOP candidate is spewing.
He’s not supposed to win anyway, so there’s no downside to being truthful.
Elizabelle
Now it looks like the female candidate is looking at “Mutually Beneficial” nudist with classic car.
You can’t buy targeted advertising like this.
kay
@rikryah:
His whole thing is about balance. He thinks it’s out of whack, ie: favors people like him. He’s looking for balance.
It’s a family business, multi-generational, so he has a basis for comparison. I do think going off on your own adds perspective, though. He didn’t join the family business until after he had successfully run a brick company on his own in North Carolina, so he’s not “entitled” in that sense. He voluntarily returned here and took over. It’s not like he couldn’t do anything else.
Cluttered Mind
I don’t see any contradiction between being a rich business owner and being a Democrat. Some rich people are smart enough to understand that killing the golden goose would hurt them too, and even if their taxes are lowered to almost nothing it won’t mean anything if the country isn’t worth living in anymore.
Benjamin Franklin
Kay; Trail Blazer….
kay
@Paul in KY:
He works really, really hard. He’s better at this than he was a week ago, and he’ll be better next week.
Chris
@Cluttered Mind:
This is what Rockefeller/Eisenhower Republicans used to be. They’ve been pretty much run out of the party, though, so now they vote Democrat.
Violet
@kay:
He looks like a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy.
Paul in KY
@kay: That’s all he can do.
jibeaux
@Cluttered Mind: Sure. It’s never seemed that hard to figure out to me, that if you’re rich almost any line of work depends on there being a solid middle class. Even if you sell luxury yachts, some of your potential customers will rely on middle class people for THEIR customers. Even if you own dollar stores, people can cut back on impulse purchases, go to yard sales and thrift stores. If the constant squeeze on the middle class continues, there will be very few people to benefit from that in the end and frankly, your odds aren’t too good.
Brian R.
@Redshift:
THIS. A thousand times, THIS.
Elizabelle
Angela Zimmann’s “Food for Thought” (quotations) link.
http://zimmannforcongress.com/about-angela/food-for-thought/
Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Upton Sinclair’s “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it”
and this
plus someone talking about “plutocrats” further in.
Wow. I hope she has a bright future, in Ohio and nationally.
(Trained engineer who’s also a Lutheran pastor and teaches writing at Bowling Green State University. Proud of public service and being a servant.)
How many Republicans are quoting Teddy Roosevelt these days? Or even allude to Dwight Eisenhower?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
These kinds of posts are so heartening, kay. Thank you, and of course for all the hard work you do as well.
Zifnab
@Chris: Well, they kinda changed seats. All the southern church-going white power populists piled into the GOP clown car, Nixon let them grab the wheel, and it’s been down hill ever since.
I will say that for all the Republicans have poisoned the political debate, they’ve done an amazing job of sucking the venom from the Democrats in the process.
Obama got to find this out the hard way. There’s rapidly diminishing benefit to meeting the GOP and its followers half-way. Might as well stand tough, because you’re not going to win anymore by running as a Blue Dog in a red state.
Paul in KY
Also like his name. ‘John Vanover’ is a good, strong name. Has a flow to it.
In a ‘public’ job, having a good name can really help. Would Micheal Jordan have been ‘Air Jordan’ if his name had been Marmaduke Van Pansybottom? How about Ralph Lauren? Given name Ralph Lipsovitz or something like that.
Glad he doesn’t have to change his name ;-)
Paul in KY
@Zifnab: I think Harry Truman wrote the playbook for the 2012 election.
pragmatism
it’s hard being a librul. one must be elitist and jealous.
a.j.
Kay – I love your updates!
Keep up the awesome, awesome work.
Elizabelle
@a.j.:
Yeah, this post and Kay’s reporting on the ground gives me a lot of hope. Good luck to John Vanover and Angela Zimmann. And the new Democrat with the plane.
Incredibly important for people to know about attempted voting restrictions.
An issue whose time has come.
kay
@Elizabelle:
She’s really talented with people. She came to the banquet (tough crowd) and they just liked her.
She did well that this event because she was real straightforward.
It’s process, mostly, because they’re all Democrats, they’re asking her if the state or national party are supporting her, what the chances are, etc, and she didn’t really gloss that over. They would have known if she was bullshitting them.
Comrade Mary
Nice report and great pics, Kay, but I really can’t see what your counters are made of. Please frame your shots more effectively next time.
(John Cole still has good, honest laminate, right?)
Elizabelle
@kay:
Connects with people. That’s great.
Plz keep us apprised of these candidates’ campaigns. Hoping they win (of course).
Chris
@Paul in KY:
1) Make the election about the do-nothing Republican Congress.
2) Exploit the shit out of the rifts in the Republican Party.
3) Campaign like there’s no tomorrow in those communities that the media and other assorted “establishment” overlooks but that are crucial in bringing in votes (immigrants, minorities and poor people).
Two other things Obama will probably have going for him that Truman also did – a slowly but surely recovering economy (barring the unexpected), and a candidate widely perceived as out of touch and elitist (barring a Gingrich victory).
The Moar You Know
I know what upkeep on even a small 182/Cub type plane costs. I don’t envy anybody that kind of colossal yearly expense.
Friend of my dad’s owns a seaplane. Hey, you get to deal with the FAA and the Coast Guard! That’s a $100K/yr bill minimum, even if it just sits there, doing nothing and looking pretty.
slag
So, are you ever going to tell us which dessert you ended up with or are you just going to leave us hanging?
EconWatcher
@Elizabelle:
She might want to rethink the Michael Parenti quote on her website. I don’t know where he falls on the spectrum these days, but he has a history in the very hard left. There’s no reason to bait the redbaiters.
Less Popular Tim
@Elizabelle:
Oh, thank FSM it’s not just me. After our host said last week that all the ads are merely a projection of our true selves and inner thoughts, I was wondering which part of my true self made the ad wizards think I was a sugar daddy looking for someone to buy stuff for in exchange for intimate relations…
Jay C
Thus giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “Graduate of an MBA Program“
noodler
Kay,
I ran for state house a few years ago, I have a manual of sorts, kindof like “so you decided to run for office” that may be useful for John V. Let me know and I can email it. Although, really all he has to know between now and Labor Day is “Raise money and knock on doors.” Nothing else matters. What’s his district? I’d love to study the precinct map for him.
kay
Email me, noodler.He needs you.
I’ll get you the precinct map.
It’s so nice of you to offer.
My email is at the top of the page. I’ll make sure he gets whatever you have.
Paul in KY
@Chris: You got it, Chris! If Newt is the nominee, then tie him to the do-nothing congress (and hang his own congressional failings around his neck).