This Year, Ohio Comes to Me

The Carew Tower in downtown Cincinnati (source)

One of the biggest changes for me in this election cycle has been the lack of an epic road trip.

For the first time in sixteen years, I have not undertaken an epic cross-country multi-state voyage by automobile, specifically geared toward taking the political pulse of the nation.

It began in 2004, when I left New York City after five years, having split with my now ex-wife. It was September, and I first went up to Massachusetts to stay with my sister and her family for a week before heading west in my car.

My destination was Oregon, a state to which I was relocating in part because it was considered a swing state, and I wanted to help sway it to the Democrats (John Kerry).

But I was no hurry. I took six weeks to cross the country, and along the way I detoured through as many battleground states as possible, traveling almost exclusively on the back roads through small towns and suburbs, into the cores of the great cities along the way.

I made it part of my trip to take a census of the yard signs for the political candidates. Even though I was heading west, I first went up to Maine, which was considered a big battleground that year. I was encouraged by what I saw for John Kerry.  Likewise in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. When I got to Oregon, I toured the suburbs of Portland and saw strong support for Kerry too, which encouraged me.

But I had noticed in Ohio, where I made a swing through the northern part of the state, that Bush support seemed strong. I think I knew Kerry was in trouble when I was driving through Holmes County, which is Amish County. For some reason I just felt it.

And indeed that is the way the election turned out. Kerry won the states I mentioned above, and Oregon as well, but he lost Ohio, which doomed him. I wound up watching the election returns that year in the Melody Ballroom in East Portland. When they made the call for Ohio on television, I knew it was over. Bush had won. It felt disgusting and awful.

Four years later, during the monumental election of 2008, I took another epic road trip, this time in the Bimmer, and this time heading east from Colorado to Washington, D.C. In that year, I was passionately for Obama. As in 2004, I camped almost exclusively, but this time I drove up the Ohio River, tracking it as closely as possible from its mouth to the forks at Pittsburgh.

I was determined to truly understand Ohio this time, as my own understanding of it would actually help Obama somehow.  Southern Ohio was well-known as the the Republican area of the state, the part of the state that had tipped it to Bush in 2004. I knew I had to experience it directly, so I was going right into the "belly of the beast" so to speak.

I was in Cincinnati on the day that Obama held a rally there, in Ault Park. While he was there, I went to the top of the Carew Tower during his speech, and later found out later that his rally had set a record of massive attendance.

A couple days later, having progressed up the river, I was in a small town in the southernmost part of the state. As I often did, I parked and walked around the downtown. I saw the office of the county Democratic Party headquarters. It was hopping with volunteers. I ducked inside and said a friendly hello. There was so much enthusiasm. That was the moment I knew that Obama was going to win Ohio, and would win the election quite handily.

Four years later, in 2012, it was a bit different. I made an epic swing through the country during the summer, but by the time the fall arrived, I was in California and spent the next four months there, moving around the state. I watched the election returns from a motel in Fresno. It all seemed appropriate, to spend the entire fall in a Democratic Party stronghold during what will undoubtedly go down as the apogee of the Millennial Progressive Era.

This year, the only road trip I have made was the five-day journey that Red and I made down from Portland to Scottsdale in July in her Ford Focus, stopping along the way at Redding, Yosemite, Fresno, Lake Arrowhead, and Rancho Mirage. It was too early for election signs in any of the states. And all during the way I have barely stirred from my home here in Fountain Hills, just on the other side of the mountains from Scottsdale. I see the yard signs when we drive to a restaurant, or go to Costco. Definitely a Trump stronghold around here.

But as it happens, I don't feel as if I've missed any reconnaisance about the election. Whenever I go onto Reddit, I can get daily updates from people on the ground in battleground states who now spend there time doing what I did in 2004---driving around counting yard signs. Folks are reporting their keen observations from all the states I would have driven through, were I to have undertaken my road trip. They report on the enthusiasm level at local rallies and campaign offices. So I can now gather all the same information by remote observation.

This all makes me feel as if I've been promoted, from a company captain out in the field to a general behind the lines. I guess that comes with age. But like any soldier, I often miss the battlefield itself, and the road. It is a cleansing experience, in many ways, t

But the battleground has found me.  It happens that Red's parents lived many years living in southern Ohio along the river outside Cincinnati, right smack along the route I took in 2008. In fact, Red tells me I would have driven past their driveway that year.

But just last month they put their home up for sale. They have purchased a large RV and have set up to see America. Two weeks ago they arrived in the Phoenix area after their own road trip across the country, where they set up for the winter in a trailer park in nearby Mesa.

When we went to visit them after their arrival, and were driving down the street of the trailer park, I noticed all the license plates on the cars---from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and other states that I would have visited were I to take my customary trip this year.

Of course their own vehicle had Ohio plates. As we sat inside their marvelous 41-foot RV, with its ample living room, we chatted about the election. They had already requested their Ohio absentee ballots, which arrived a week later.

I won't tell you the candidate for whom they voted, but I will say that their opinions have certainly factored into my observations and conclusions regarding the election this year.