Obama’s visit to area a rousing success

By David Skolnick WHO CARES? Shortly after the conclusion of Barack Obama’s town hall-style meeting in Austintown, I received a frantic telephone call from an official with the Ohio AFL-CIO. He was concerned that Jack O’Connell, the former head of the local AFL-CIO, endorsed John McCain, Obama’s Republican rival for the presidency. The labor supports Obama, a Democrat, to the surprise of, uh, no one. Waiting for me on my computer when I arrived at the office was an e-mail from McCain’s campaign touting O’Connell’s endorsement like it was huge, important news. Nothing personal against O’Connell, but who cares who he endorses for president? Who’s going to vote for McCain because a retired local union official and long-time James A. Traficant Jr. pal is supporting him? A show of hands please. O’Connell made his intentions clear during McCain’s April visit to Youngstown State University even though he disagreed with McCain’s support of the North American Free Trade Agreement. By some strange coincidence, O’Connell was seated a few feet away from McCain at the YSU event when he praised the presidential candidate. skolnick@vindy.com

Published:Friday, August 8, 2008

By David Skolnick

Based on Barack Obama’s reception at the town hall-style meeting in Austintown, it’s hard to believe this is the same candidate so strongly rejected by the Mahoning Valley during the March Democratic presidential primary.

Obama’s showing in that primary against Hillary Rodham Clinton was embarrassing. Among the three counties in the Mahoning Valley, Obama’s best showing in March was in Mahoning where he received 35 percent of the vote.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who used to represent a sliver of the Valley at one time in the U.S. House, explained the primary defeat this way: “It’s not like Barack lost to nobody. Hillary had a very strong message and was trusted here and had the governor [Ted Strickland] working hard for her. She won the state more than he lost it.”

Perhaps.

In 2004, John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, had mediocre results in the Valley during the primary, including a loss to John Edwards in Trumbull County. In the general election, Kerry received about 62 percent of the vote in Mahoning and Trumbull counties. That was an improvement of about 15 percentage points.

Obama’s going to need an increase of at least 30 percentage points from his primary numbers in November to match Kerry’s 2004 general election amount.

The Valley, one of the most Democratic portions of the state, does rally around its presidential candidates.

But we shouldn’t consider Obama to be a lock to do to John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, what Clinton did to him in the Democratic primary in the Valley.

Those in the crowd of about 2,000 greeted Obama with a lot of enthusiasm. They cheered. They screamed. They rose to their feet. They chanted, “Yes We Can.” They even serenaded Obama with “Happy Birthday,” a day after he celebrated his 47th.

Don’t forget that more than 5,000 attended Obama’s Feb. 18 rally at Youngstown State University. That’s about the total amount of people at two rallies Clinton held in the Valley before the primary yet she had no trouble beating Obama.

Large and enthusiastic crowds don’t always translate into victories in this area.

Tuesday’s event was a good start for Obama. His campaign realizes additional events in this area are needed in order for Obama to do well and that a strong win here is needed if he’s to carry Ohio.

McCain’s campaign also knows this. The Republican has campaigned here twice in the past four months. It’s quite likely he’ll be back.

OK, enough “deep thinking” for now. My head is starting to hurt.

There were some very amusing happenings at the Obama event.

A regional field director for Obama, who looked to be about 16 years old at best [though I’m sure he’s older than that], spoke for about two minutes to get the crowd excited.

He said the word, “change” about a half-dozen times, or one “change” every 20 seconds. I couldn’t stop working the word into every conversation I had for about two hours.

The print media was told ahead of time that Obama would only being doing television interviews with Youngstown and some Cleveland stations after the event. Each TV reporter received four minutes of the candidate’s time. That is except one.

ABC’s Diane Sawyer arrived at Austintown Fitch High School a little after 7 a.m. with a large crew to conduct a lengthy interview with Obama in the band room.

Before the event, Obama’s campaign staff told me that his remarks in Austintown would be similar to what he said a day earlier in Lansing, Mich. I brought along a copy of the Lansing speech to Tuesday’s event.

The Austintown speech was a condensed version of what Obama said in Lansing. In some cases he read the exact same passages.

The most amusing part was when Obama touted wind energy.

His statement in Lansing: “Experts have said that Michigan has the second best potential for wind generation and production in the entire country.”

His statement in Austintown: “I also know that Ohio has the second highest potential of all 50 states to create new wind energy manufacturing jobs.”

I wonder how many other No. 2s are out there and I’m somewhat curious as to what state is No. 1.

By David Skolnick(Contact David)