Hari Seldon had this little theory he called “psychohistory”…
I’ve received two or three Obama mailings every week, on average, all through the fall. In the last two weeks I’ve been getting anti-Obama (not pro-McCain) mailings from the Ohio Republican Party every other day or so. Our phone is unlisted, so we haven’t had any campaign-related calls.
In early 1988, I was working at a Dukakis phonebank in New Hampshire when I got a call from a pollster. I was glad to answer all of his questions about who I supported in the Granite State primary.
I can only speak for the SW corner of the state (Cincy, Dayton, Hamilton, Middletown), and only through personal observation, but it seems like the undecideds here fall into 2 classes. These “undecideds” seem to be those who are intensely private about their choice, which there are a fair number of, and the suburban sprawlers. The first group know who they are voting for, and cannot be talked out of it, and generally don’t want to hear any pro or con arguments about the other candidate, they are going to vote who they want to vote for, and it is none of your damn business.
The second group is a little more interesting. These are people who seem to have radiated to the new McSuburbs over the past 5-7 years, while working either in one of the bigger cities still. it is an odd mix of middle white collar workers, and skilled laborers that have moved away from the neighborhoods they grew up in, because those neighbrhoods are getting more and more crime infested. There is also a hidden but significant racial motivation for these individuals moving to suburbia- the minority population from downtown Cincinnati has migrated from the city to the city suburbs, and many white families feel that the minorities will turn their neighborhoods to ghetto.
On the surface, given the racial reasoning, and the conservative nature of the area in general, these voters would go Republican. However, many are in debate because they see what the country has been like over the past 8 years, many have lost their jobs, and they seem to be sick of attack type ads. They view Obama as someone that is identifying with their situation, and closer to their age demographic. The flip side of this is that he is a liberal, and a minority, and is not “comfort food” for them because they have not seen him until the past few years. People around here don’t like change that much, but are trying to come to grips that change is needed. I know this is not the place for opinions, but I’m going to throw it out there anyway. If Barack was a white guy named Barry, a lot of the undecideds in the burbs would have a much easier decision.
It all depends on your standard of “decent-sized”, of course. Cleveland, Cincinnatti, and Columbus all have hub airports, they could all support major-league professional sports, they’re all recognizable by name without specifying the state, etc. By the standard I was applying, Montana doesn’t have any “decent-sized” cities at all (and when talking about Montana, I use a different standard).
Which leads to further complication: Even though Parma is one of the largest cities in Ohio, it originated, as I understand it, as a suburb, a bedroom community serving the metropolis. By contrast, cities like Lakewood or Shaker originated as their own separate cities (both have their own “downtown” area, for instance), and just got assimilated by the sprawl. So which has the greater claim to cityhood: Lakewood or Parma?
We’re talking about the the rural-urban split being a factor in political viewpoint. Someone living in a metropolitan area of 150,000 isn’t going to have a rural viewpoint. It doesn’t really matter that the city couldn’t support a major league sports team or a hub airport.
Seriously, the 30-or-so “major sports” metros do not encompass the entirety of urban America.
Not sure if the rest of Ohio is like this, but in the Cleveland area the city of Cleveland itself is relatively small (500-600k?) but the greater metro Cleveland area consists of about 70 different cities.
I generally consider the greater Cleveland to be one unit and Akron/Canton another unit.
