IN MY SHOES: Report From The OH Front
By Cynthia Ruccia
Special to The Stiletto Blog
Greetings from the Columbus, OH, heartland where the whole world is a little upside down waiting for this election finally to be over!
My week started off with a bunch of phone calls from East and West coasters “horrified” at what's going on in OH: “What can we do?" All is lost!” Hmmmm. What in the world were they talking about?
As usual, the MSM – a subject I plan to tackle on this blog at another time - was busy spinning tall tales. “All is lost” turned out to be about the one-week overlap in the state’s early voting law between September 30 and October 6 when people can register to vote and cast an absentee ballot the same day – which has raised the specter of voter fraud in some (mostly Republican) quarters. (OH, by the way, is one of 30 states that allow early voting in one form or another.)
In truth, the possibility of dirty tricks certainly exists with the early voting schedule overlapping with the voter registration schedule - my son, who just started his sophomore year at Ohio State University (which has the largest university population in the country) tells me that on his first day of school he was accosted by no fewer than fifteen people who wanted to register him to vote. (It took him five days, but he learned which streets and pathways to avoid so he can walk around campus in peace.)
And there are still conspiracy theorists who are convinced that the 2004 election was stolen from John Kerry right here in OH. But then, as now, I just can’t see the election officials and poll workers I have come to know in my years of being active in the Democratic Party in this state will allow voter fraud to occur. You may disagree, but I have lived in OH for 43 years and I know these folks. There are too many good people who, like the heroes of 9/11's United flight 93, would stand up and fight against any kind of chicanery.
As it turned out at week's end there were 600 people who registered and voted on the same day. We have over a million plus people here in Franklin County, most of whom are eligible to vote so I don’t think these 600 should be much cause for worry. I don't expect John McCain to win my county, but I honestly think he'll win 85 of the 88 counties in OH just like Hillary did.
On another subject, McCain and Sarah Palin held a rally last Monday at Capital University in my suburban town of Bexley and there was complete pandemonium. Not that you would have known from the media coverage. But I know what I saw.
I went downtown to make my first appearance as a Hillary supporter at the McCain-Palin campaign headquarters in OH. Even though I'm voting for McCain – honest – I still felt a twinge of guilt going over there, and kept looking over my shoulder to see if my Democratic friends were stalking me. I got inside the building and no one recognized me! Phew!
The place was full of women crackling with excitement, picking up their tickets to see Palin. They were infectious! I got my ticket – and a McCain-Palin yard sign and slunk out the door, again looking left and right for those stalking Democrats! As soon as I got home I plunked my McCain-Palin sign into my front yard. I felt like Neil Armstrong planting the American flag in the soil of the moon. I made my stand, and to heck with what the neighbors thought!
The upside of openly declaring my intentions: The yard sign will protect me from canvassers for Barack Obama knocking on my door. (Since my state is so important, the pressure applied by the Obamaites is relentless.) The downside: I went to see a JV high school football game – my son is one of the coaches – and found out from the quarterback’s Mom that he has been repeatedly called a “racist” for supporting McCain. His mother also told me that she knows of many others who haven't put up McCain-Palin yard signs because they fear being called racists by their Obama-supporting neighbors.
I keep hearing stories like this over and over and over again across OH, as well as from friends all over the country. I was upset the first few times I was called a racist for supporting McCain, but I don't care anymore. I know I am not a racist, and regret that race relations in this country have been coarsened by this line of thinking.
Finally, I can’t begin to express how much I love Sarah Palin. She's a national treasure. And to my elitist Democratic friends: Wake up! This is a woman who can do so much good for all of us. As long as the women’s voting bloc allows politicians to divide us, we will never have the political power to make the kind of changes most women agree on. I say bring on Sarah Palin - and as many women we can find to get elected to public office at all levels of government. If we do, many of our problems and yearnings as women will finally be resolved.
That's my real goal beyond the 2008 election. But first we have to get McCain-Palin elected here in OH.
Now about those Obama signs and canvassers, the free busses from OSU to the voting booths and the Bruce Springsteen concert in Columbus to sign up more Obama voters … hmmmm. Clouds on the horizon. But I'll be keeping you posted!
Editorial Note: Cynthia Ruccia wrote about attending the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN, and the Democratic National Convention in Denver, CO, for The Stiletto Blog. She is a co-founder of Women for Fair Politics and of The New Agenda. She has been a Democrat for 40 years. She ran for Congress in 1994 and 1996, and for the Ohio House in 1998. She was a member of the Franklin County Democratic Party Executive and Central Committees for 10 years. She is also the author of “Wanna Win, a Democratic Guide to Fundraising,” and travels around the country holding fundraising seminars for Democratic candidates, county party chairs and campaign workers. She has been married to Nick Ruccia for 35 years, and they have two sons, Daniel, 25, and Michael, 19.
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