I made canvassing calls for We Are Ohio the other night. The ballot issue in question is a “citizen veto” of SB5, which is Ohio’s new union-busting law. Technically, the law hasn’t gone in yet, which is why it’s “NO” on Issue Two.
I don’t love making canvassing calls, but I will do it, and once I get started I generally don’t hate it. We had five volunteers making calls. Three of the five were public school teachers.
I was told my “list” was generally favorable to repeal of the law, and that turned out to be true. I spoke to only one really angry conservative, with the rest of my contacts indicating, with various levels of enthusiasm, that they would vote “NO.
Many of my calls were directed to voters who are 70-plus years old. I’m familiar with addresses in the county where I was working because I worked for the Postal Service there at one time, and these were rural route addresses. Combine “Ohio” with “rural route” and “land line” and I think any voter list would skew older.
When making calls, it seems I always encounter at least one really great person. I talked to Mary, who is 78, and voting no on Issue Two, and she told me “working people have to stick together”. See? Is that so hard? Mary gets it in one try, and she’s not even a highly paid political professional or cable TV star.
The polling on Issue Two is tightening, and the conventional wisdom is that Republicans are “coming home” to former Fox News personality and Lehman Brothers executive John Kasich.
Ohio voters support 51 – 38 percent repeal in a November referendum of SB 5, the law limiting collective bargaining for public employees, compared to 56 – 32 percent in July.
While that’s regrettable, (but perhaps not yet troubling) everyone involved here locally assumed the GOP and their privatization allies would throw giant wads of money at capturing, outsourcing or selling the few institutions, services and assets that remain public. We knew it was coming.