Straight Talk Express, Bush Legacy Bus Crisscross Ohio

by OhioNewsBureau | June 29, 2008 at 09:14 pm

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Dueling Buses in Race to Win Hearts and Minds of Ohio Voters

OhioNewsBureau

COLUMBUS, OHIO: If the Straight Talk Express, the name of Republican presidential hopeful John S. McCain’s campaign and campaign bus, heads north from Dayton to Lordstown, Ohio, where the Arizona Senator was stumping Friday at a General Motor’s plant, and the Bush Legacy Tour Bus, a mobile museum containing unflattering exhibits on the many failures of the Bush presidency, also heads north from the state capital of Columbus to Canton, as it stalks McCain who needs the state’s 20 Electoral College to win the White House, which one will win the hearts and minds of Ohio voters?

McCAIN IN MUST-WIN OHIO AGAIN

Sen. McCain of Arizona returned again to Ohio Friday and Saturday to woo so-called “lunch pail” workers, who he described as “Reagan Democrats.” He also knelt at the altar of Ohio conservative Evangelical leaders, who in the past have stood steadfast behind President Bush and other Republican favorites like former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, but who no longer are the formidable, unified force they once were. This fact is recognized by political observers, not the least of which is Democratic Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who said McCain would find it an uphill battle to gain much of a foothold with either group.

Published reports, like this one, show that McCain’s straight talk on election-year issues like the economy and jobs will be a tough sell with the GM workers he talked to in northeast Ohio, whose company, once the bellwether of the nation, is now at a 34-year low.

McCAIN PRAYS RELIGIOUS LEADERS CAN WORK A MIRACLE FOR HIM

Hoping to win the support of another crowd that doesn’t carry the punch it once did, McCain should pray that these religious leaders and their followers, who rallied around Republicans in the past but who are poised to break with their past support as they did in 2006, when they crossed the political isle to work with and vote for Democrats like Strickland, whose credentials as a Methodist minister and fearlessness in walking into the den of faith Democrats were uncomfortable doing before was on the Biblical scale of Daniel walking into the Lion’s Den, don’t migrate away en mass but stay loyal to the apostles of faith-based politics who will try again to make social wedge issues like gay marriage a potent force in this year’s elections.

McCain told conservative religious leaders in Ohio that he would "would speak out more to highlight his pro-life record and views on other social issues to garner more Christian conservative support." It was also made clear to McCain by Phill Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values, a Cincinnati group that helped pass an anti-gay marriage ban amendment to the state constitution in 2004, that "if he doesn’t start speaking on family issues, he’s going to lose Ohio.” Another religious leader who attended the meeting with McCain, Chris Long, president of the Ohio Christian Alliance, said he underscored to the presidential hopeful the importance of a pro-life running mate.

Like Sen. Hillary Clinton did before him before in the week leading up to the Ohio primary in March, when she beat Sen. Barack Obama 67 percent to 36 percent, McCain toured the same GM plant where fuel-efficient Chevy Cobalts are made. The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer’s Mark Naymik reported that McCain left out the North American Free Trade Agreement from his prepared speech and would only say of the agreement many workers at this plant and across Ohio point to as a reason the state has lost the manufacturing jobs it has, that “we do have mechanisms in these agreements where we can bring suit where unfair practices exist." Hedging his comments to avoid saying he will renegotiate them, puts McCain at odds with Obama and Clinton who both promised to revisit NAFTA, and others if need be, to rework them so as to include fair trade and environmental provisions.

In a conference call between Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan and reporters that included the OhioNewsBureau and that was conducted before McCain hit the shop floor at Lordstown, the Democrat from Niles mocked McCain for not doing more to create jobs and energy alternatives even though he uses the laurels of his long-stay in Washington as the experience Obama lacks. Ryan said McCain is “the wrong guy for the Mahoning Valley,” a statement echoing comments made by Strickland the day before that likewise implied McCain would a fish out of water here.

BUSH LEGACY TOUR BUS SLIP STREAMS STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS

Meanwhile, the Bush Legacy Tour Bus, a bio-fueled project of Americans United For Change, a group hoping to build on its since 2005 to defeat the move by the White House to privatize Social Security and supported by worker and progressive groups like the AFL-CIO, MoveOn.Org and others, was hard on the heels of McCain, as it hopes to contact 100,000 Americans on a 50,000 mile journey that will bring its traveling museum of exhibits on issues like the Iraq War, the economy, health care, workers, Katrina and education to those who they want to convince that McCain will continue the Bush legacy. The bus will make 150 stops, one-third to one-half of which will be in front of House and Senate offices of people who supported Bush and his policies.

Brad Woodhouse, Bush Legacy Project founder, said during the kick off event held in Washington, D.C., that many ideas to lambaste the president over his many failures were considered, but the most fitting and moving tribute to his legacy would a bus that traveled the country.

“When you vote with a president 96 percent of the time, who has so thoroughly screwed up America, you should have some explaining to do. And this bus is going to make these people explain why they’ve supported President Bush. It will chronicle not just President Bush’s failures but the failures of conservative ideology. This is our contribution to sticking a stake in the heart of conservatism and redefining American political values in a progressive frame." [Brad Woodhouse, kick off remarks]

For McCain, running to head the ticket of the Republican Party whose reigning leader is still President Bush, reports that show his approval ratings are at new lows is the kind of anchor any graduate of the Navy Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, would rather not have to hold while treading water. But as we see in this report in the Sunday Columbus Dispatch, which reported on a national survey by the Los Angles Times/Bloomberg News the president's job approval reach a new low last week of 23 percent, which is one point higher than his approval rating in Ohio.

The Bush Legacy Tour Bus will follow McCain’s Straight Talk Express from Ohio to Pennsylvania Monday, where he’ll be conducting another of his Town Hall meetings in Pipersville, PA. It made stops in Dayton, Columbus and Canton Ohio, and will make its last stop in the Buckeye State when on July 12 it will be in Zanesville in east central Ohio. The bus tour’s last stop is October 15 in Dallas, Texas.

To contact this reporter with a tip of a story idea, send an email to ohionewsbureau@gmail.com