COLUMBUS — Ohio is called the “battleground of all battlegrounds”, who wins Ohio wins the American presidency and that just might not be Barack Obama — remember Florida in 2004!
Report by Nevanji Madanhire in Ohio, USA
Obama has picked his stride, but the first debate which he lost to his opponent still haunts him and his future rests on a knife edge.
Super storm Sandy didn’t hit Ohio, a great relief to the people here, but an anti-climax for me. Half a mind says I would have loved to experience this life-time occurrence, but the other half is not so sure considering the number of people who died because of the storm and the billions of new dollars that will be spent to repair the damage!
More than 60 people perished and 60 million others were affected nationally, a huge number lost their homes.
But Ohio is experiencing a super storm of its own! It is among what are called “Battleground States”. There are quite a handful such states, but Ohio is the most crucial of them in the 2012 elections!
With the election on today, the two candidates have descended on the state like a hurricane.
Incumbent President Barack Obama has visited it innumerable times in the past few days. His rival Mitt Rooney has done the same, by Sunday he had visited the state more than 40 times in 13 months. These visits have been very good for the state’s economy not least because the television stations have made a killing in advertising revenue, but also the influx of campaign trains has boosted tourist receipts.
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More than $1 billion will have been spent in advertising nationally by today, 20% of which would have been spent in Ohio. A single television station in the state could make as much as $40 million dollars.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans are making claims that will only be proven right or wrong after today. The daily polls cannot be believed, they are keeping people on tenterhooks by declaring the contest too close to call, but I think it’s just TV stations trying to coax more advertising money from the parties.
Nationally, groups to watch will be undecided voters as the countdown to election goes towards zero, some of the people in this group will decide not to vote, while a large chunk might decide to vote for independents. This group constitutes 2-3% of all voters, which is very large. This is the group the parties are targeting now.
But an important group to watch are women voters. There is something called the gender gap which might decide the outcome. This is the percentage difference between men and women supporting each candidate. Many would think that this gap arises because of such women’s issues as abortion, but some scholars are saying most important among women’s issues is the aspect of peace, women are likely to vote for the candidate least likely to take Americans to war, in this case that would be Obama.
Republicans are known for their belligerence, exhibited most clearly during the George W Bush years. The general opinion is that Romney is very likely to go to war somewhere if he wins and the women don’t like him for that. But they are not alone in this because men also think foreign policy is important and they hate Republican foreign policy.
The group that may go against this general thinking comprises white working class males who constitute 30% of the electorate. They don’t like Obama very much mainly because of racial prejudice which is still a very important factor here in America — only 40 years ago America was still segregated and attitudes haven’t changed dramatically since; remember Obama did very poorly in the south during the 2008 elections because of entrenched racism.
Interestingly, this group also don’t like Romney because they see him as a class enemy; Ohio is a manufacturing hub which accuses Romney of exporting jobs in the past. Romney is a very successful capitalist and workers don’t think he represents their interests.
Also the state of the economy might affect Obama, forget the fact that it was Republican Bush who caused the recession in the first place.
Americans don’t think that way, they look at what Obama promised them and whether he fulfilled the promises. They think he has failed in that regard particularly in creating jobs. Although figures show he has created millions of jobs there are millions of people who still haven’t secured jobs and, therefore, their lot has not been improved.
But the Democrats argue that though this group has not yet benefitted from the Obama administration, voting Republican is not the solution because Romney has exported jobs in the past; this undercut the “Romney’s appeal” — which he created by winning the first debate — he has promised to increase jobs, but his track record works against him. More than 55% of worker union members have already declared that they would vote for Obama.
In the past minorities were not important here in Ohio, but as the population continues to grow countrywide these are beginning to outnumber the whites who have always constituted the majority — California minorities are already in the majority putting into question the fact of referring to them as minorities. Hispanics, African-Americans and Asian-Americans are continuing to increase in number and are likely to vote Democrat, but that is only if they come to the polling stations.
In 2008, their turnout was unprecedented and they voted for Obama, mainly for emotional reasons. But they might be disillusioned now because they think Obama has not done enough for them. During the mid-term elections in 2010 they were not very enthusiastic and a lot of them didn’t vote at all.
If they don’t vote this time around, Obama might be in trouble. Hispanics though are decidedly anti-Romney — Arizona Hispanics are particularly irritated by Romney — because he continues to refer to them as foreigners and they are likely to turn out in their droves to vote against him.
In Ohio, the supremacist Tea Party forms the backbone of the Republican support and they are backed by a new phenomenon comprising born-again Christians who constitute 29% of Ohio. They hate Democrats for their support for abortion. About 67% of them are expected to vote for Romney. The rest of them are, however, suspicious of Romney because he is a Mormon.
However in 2008, they overwhelming voted Republican. Another important group that could determine the election outcome are young voters (18-29 age group) who generally voted a Democrat in 2008; but have become disillusioned in Obama, their loyalty is questionable this time around. It is generally known that young people vote the least and this will definitely affect the Democratic vote, but a lot of work is being done on the university campuses. The trend is that the more educated people are, the more Democratic they become, but a lot will again hinge on their turnout.
A third of all voters here are Independent, but they know that voting for independent candidates would be a waste of their vote; in the countdown to the elections parties are particularly targeting these. They are responsible for the “swing” tag that Ohio bears; they can swing the vote either side. In past elections Ohio has swung back and forth.
Finally Obama might have been helped by the “October Factor”. Only a few days before elections no one knew anything about Hurricane Sandy. A lot has been said about how this helped Obama. They say Sandy helped Obama to be President during an intense election campaign when everyone was becoming fed up with the election campaign. Sandy took him away from the campaign trail and his performance as the caring president came to the fore.
Americans, contrary to what the rest of the world believes, hate election years because of the idiocy of it all, everything comes to a standstill during the campaign period and there is an advertising overkill. A lot just might not vote because of this.
