Bill Clinton Stumps for Obama in Toledo

ODP Chief Predicts Obama Wins Ohio by 220,000 Votes

OhioNewsBureau

with John Michael Spinelli

Toledo, Ohio: Bill Clinton, who had appeared the previous night before an expansive crowd in Kissimmee, Florida with Barack Obama, seemed larger than life as he spoke from a small stage in the small gym of an old school in Toledo, Ohio, where he waxed folksy before a considerably smaller crowd of about 800, who he encouraged to reach out to the "not sures" to urge them to vote for a president who can turn "good intentions into positive changes."


Introducing Mr. Clinton 30th event on behalf of Mr. Obama at the former DeVibiss High School where the Grove Patterson Academy is located was Robin Deters. Deters introduced herself to the crowd as being among the 47 million Americans without health insurance. She and Mr. Clinton emerged from a curtain behind the stage and strode up the stairs to the podium. She exhorted the crowd seated in the balcony and those squashed together around the petite stage on which she and the former president stood to "work our tails off" for Mr. Obama in the days and hours remaining until Election Day next Tuesday.

The former two-term president under whose leadership the nation enjoyed peace and prosperity for eight years during the 1990s, sprinkled some history through his 40-minute talk, that at times sounded as folksy in tone as the small-town banter delivered these days by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the first woman nominated to a presidential ticket by the Republican Party. The silver-haired husband of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who lost a tough, hard-fought primary contest to Mr. Obama, lavished praise on the man who outfund-raised and out worked his wife and her organization during the primary season to become the first African-American ever to run for the highest office in the land and maybe the most powerful post in the world.

Speaking without a teleprompter or prepared remarks of any kind, Clinton revisited the speech he delivered the previous night in Florida, where he touted Mr. Obama as not only smart enough to be president but knowledgeable enough to consult with a variety of people on issues of national importance and capable enough to deliver his decision in a way that, regardless of whether it was popular or not at the time, could translate to every one why he made it.

He extolled the growth of the Middle Class during his tenure as president. He said there was more growth for the bottom 40 percent of Americas during his time that there was for the top 20 percent. Talking to a crowd sensitive to the plight of the auto industry, given Toledo's long history of vehicle manufacturing and auto parts supplies and the news that Chrysler will eliminate about 850 Middle Class jobs by the end of the year, Clinton said the demise of a company like General Motors, which is not out of the question in light of the economic meltdown now taking place,  and the hit that would have on the company's 1,800 suppliers would be devastating. Clinton warned his energetic listeners that the American auto industry, not just the Lordstown plant near Cleveland, could be lost. "We've got to hire somebody who gets it," he said, gesticulating with his now-famous finger to emphasise his point.

"We now know that it's not just about personalities. It's about ideas, it's about philosophy, it's about programming, and their deal has run out of energy and run out of time - it doesn't work," Mr. Clinton said.

Speaking to his Ohio audience, the man from Hope, Arkansas, said "Once in a great while, but rarely, the Democrats have eased in without carrying Ohio, but that's rare … the point is that you have this election and the future of our country in your hands."

He lauded Obama for managing his history-making campaign, an example of executive leadership that has shown the power of the Internet to involve people and raise money from them in ways unfathomable just a few years ago. As one chief executive speaking to the person who could be the next one, Clinton said being "The Decider," as George W. Bush said he was, was about being the "chief executor." He said Obama has the right philosophy to be a great president. As for policies, the talk and gaunt WONK said he had read both Obama's and McCain's and declared Obama's to be far superior. He touched on the need for an energy plan and health care and why companies should be rewarded with tax breaks if they create jobs here rather than create them in other countries. With a compliant and energized crowd above, beside and in front of him cheering him through his speech, Clinton had everyone standing, including many who were seated in the balcony, as he roared to a close, triggering the loud speakers to blare Steve Wonder's song "Signed, Sealed and Delivered" as he descended from the stage.

Toledo Attendees Share Concerns

Following the speech, Sally Bernard was so proud of the autographed picture she had featuring Bill Clinton speaking at a previous Obama rally in Toledo with her identifiable in the background. She said Mr. Clinton came across her as he worked the rope line following his address on behalf of Sen. Barack Obama, walking talking, shaking hands, posing for pictures and soaking up the adulation from the front-row circle that wound around the rather small stage he stood on in a boys gym that could have doubled for the one used in the film Hoosiers, the story of a small town Indiana basketball team that goes all the way to beat the big, stronger team to win the state basketball championship.

Bernard explained that she had met every president since Gerald Ford, and landing Clinton's signature on her special picture was a big deal. "He came back and asked my name," she said. Maybe to give some perspective why she was so satisfied with Mr. Clinton and why she was voting for Barack Obama, she confessed that back in 1980 she was lining up with the ticket of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. She smiled and said she was a "recovering Republican." Walking further along the venerable school's old, brick-solid corridors, she said she liked Obama for a couple simple reasons, "He's younger and smarter than I am and he's for the people, " she said. Echoing a couple talking points Clinton argued were reasons then next president should be Obama, she said he was "brilliant, informed and a servant for the people."  She was also a Hillary supporter in the primary last March.

Kathie Weber, a former Toledo school teacher and program administrator, and her husband Don, 60, my senior by five days as we learned, were excited and energized by their participation in Obama's quest for the White House. They were equally anxious about whether it could happen. Born in Detroit but relocated to Toledo at a young age, Don, a volunteer with the event, said the "Republicans chased us away" in a couple of ways, including the influence the religious right has had on creating a "politics full of fear and hate."

Asked whether she had every voted for a Republican before, and she said she "probably has in her life" but really thinks of herself as an independent. "I always look at the person and the policies, but the policies of the Republican Party have moved so far away from the center that even thought I'm an independent, the policies of the Democrats are more middle of the road for me, " she said. In today's world, she thought Democrats were in the mainstream and that Republicans had moved to the far right bank.

As a young woman in college, she said, with a little laugh, "I was a "Nixonette," and recalled seeing and hearing Richard Nixon and even Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic from Minnesota who lost to him in 1968, the tumultuous year during which Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kenny were assassinated and the Democratic convention in Chicago coined the phrase "The world is watching" as Chicago policeman beat up on protesters as the TV cameras captured it all.

She said she and Don "never did anything in politics until four years ago" when they said to each other: "We have got to make a change, this just doesn't make sense." They then "threw their hearts and souls" into the Kerry campaign from February on. The duo said they thought there have to be more people who see it our way. They were right, to a degree, but there just weren't enough to make it register.

With one daughter who is 31-years old and developmentally disabled, health care is a huge issue to them. "We don't have to look at just our own finish line," Kathie said, with Don by her side. "We have to look at being able to provide for her for the rest of her life because she can never be really be independent." TheWebers talked about the importance of health insurance, saying their future hopes for their daughter are tied to Ohio's state teachers retirement pension fund.

Having done the math, Kathie said she expects her family health care costs to rise despite the fact that their daughter has now qualified for Social Security Disability Insurance, orSSDI, and next January will qualify for Medicare. The Webers don't like it, but they calculate their monthly health care payment to be about $900 per month, an amount that is lower than it could be cause they chosen higher co-pays and deductible levels. Kathie and Don both turned 60 this year.

So it's no surprise that health issue is a huge issue to them. Still uncertain as to whether a single-payer universal health care system is the way to go, Kathie Weber nonetheless said it was "extremely important that everyone has some access to some kind of health insurance."

"If we can pool people and have a larger pool of people, and have healthy people in with those who have health conditions, then you spread the risk over a larger population, which, by my economics, should lower premiums," she said. She was asked if that isn't socialism, the political brickbat McCain and Palin have been beating up on Obama andBiden with of late. She said Republicans say to "Pull on your boots...what if you don't have any boots, or they are worn out or don't fit," she wondered.

Enoch Wu, 20, a first-time voter and photographer working the event for the BGNews, a newsprint publication of Bowling Green State University in Wood County, agreed with the characterization that Obama represented the future while Mr. McCain represented the past. Wu, whose parents migrated from China to the US, where they became citizens he was born, cited Mr. Obama's intelligence as one reason that made him a good choice for the top office. But he couldn't say the same for McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for vice president. He thought Palin's bashing and trashing of Obama and Democrats over the issues they've been using to try and turn the tide in their favor in the waning days before the election -- namely big-government, tax and spend liberals -- weren't related to national policies he thought needed to be addressed. Majoring in visual communications, Wu said he knew of only a few students in his circle of friends who were backing McCain. And those, he said, were doing so based on national pride and the need to win the war in Iraq.

ODP Chief Working the Line in Toledo

The crowd that gathered before the event snaked around the parking lot behind the old high school, which is now to two specialized schools. Working the line of people waiting to get in by handing them buttons that read "Veterans for Obama" was none other than the executive director of the Ohio Democratic Party (ODP). Chris Redfern, a term-limited House rep from Catawba in north central Ohio, said he was handing the veteran buttons because "they were the only ones we had left."Redfern spoke to the OhioNewsBureau last February in Cleveland at the Democratic debate between Mr. Obama and his primary rival, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. At the time,Redfern projected that even though the battle in Ohio would be hard fought and tight, he said it would go Blue by 250,000 votes, an increase from the 118,601 votes that put President Bush over the top in 2004, when Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts was his rival. Tightening up the win margin eight months later,Redfern said Obama will win by 220,000 votes or about 3 percent of the approximately 7.9 million voters expected to turnout next Tuesday.Slipstreaming Obama's win in Ohio, the man who transformed the ODP from a mediocre political operation with funding problems into a formidable and resourceful powerhouse organisation that worked like a might tug in 2006 to guide Democratic ships of state including the office of governor, attorney general, treasurer and secretary of state into their Ohio births. With an attitude as crisp as the fall weather,Redfern predicted Democrats will reclaim the Ohio House, settling out with 52 seats, enough to control business in the 99-member chamber.

Because the OhioNewsBureau has reported on the esoteric but important issue of cyber thievery of elections, Redfern was asked whether he put any stock in the claim offered by attorneys behind the King-Lincoln Bronzeville Lawsuit that the 2004 election was stolen by Republican computer operative. Out of buttons and out of time, he said that although he was aware of the claim, he couldn't put any stock in it. Let's hope he's right and the issue is overblown.

Photos courtesy of Enoch Wu, BGNews

ohionewsbureau@gmail.com