Route 58 starts almost at the Lake Erie shoreline, just west of the Cleveland suburbs, and runs due south. I drove about 50 miles of it today, and the signs along the way were wonderfully encouraging!
Furthest north on Route 58 is Lorain. It’s an old steel and auto parts town, with lots of unemployment. I didn’t get that far north, but I assume it’s an Obama town.
Next is Amherst, where I grew up. It’s been years since I lived there, but it used to be pretty evenly split. The ratio of McCain/Obama signs seemed pretty even.
Ten or fifteen miles further south puts you in Oberlin. Home of Oberlin College and a whole lot of liberal thinkers. Solid Obama territory, no surprise there.
But as soon as you cross the city limits, you’re on the northern edge of Southern Ohio – deep red Southern Ohio. Wellington isn’t 20 miles from Oberlin, still on Route 58, but it might as well be another planet. This is the mythical Middle America that McCain really needs to reach. Farmers and hourly plant workers, steady church goers with deeply conservative views. You know – Republicans.
So why, at the edges of the corn fields and in front of the pumpkins stands and in the neat little farmhouse yards, are there still so many Obama signs?
There were McCain signs, too. Quite a few. But there were more Obama signs, by a factor of about two to one. In Wellington.
Okay, unless you’ve lived along this little section of state road, maybe you don’t realize how amazing this really is. But trust me. It’s huge!