McCain to visit Wilmington in job-loss crisis

Rural southwest Ohio is a GOP stronghold, one that McCain needs to secure.

WILMINGTON, Ohio (AP) — City officials in Wilmington, Ohio — bracing for the potential loss of 8,000 jobs at a nearby air park — have courted Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for help. Now it’s Republican John McCain’s turn.

McCain is expected to meet with local officials today to discuss express shipper DHL’s plans to move work away from the 1,130-acre Wilmington Air Park. The economy has become a crucial issue in Ohio, a pivotal swing state that gave President Bush the electoral votes he needed for re-election in 2004.

On Wednesday, McCain toured the Merillat kitchen cabinet plant in Jackson in south-central Ohio, where he said the tax burden on businesses that make their home in the United States needs to be reduced and that new markets need to be opened to U.S. products. He later stopped in Chillicothe, bearing pizzas for firefighters there.

Wilmington Mayor David Raizk said he is encouraged that McCain is coming to his city of 12,000, which is in shock over DHL’s plans.

“This is worthy of every presidential candidate’s attention,” Raizk said. “Whether it’s a vote-changing issue or not, I think it might be a little too early to tell. It’s a matter of making sure our situation here stays on the front burner.”

In May, DHL announced that it wants to hire United Parcel Service to replace ABX Air and ASTAR Air Cargo in transporting DHL packages. That would mean much of the work normally handled at Wilmington Air Park would be transferred to an out-of-state UPS facility.

A task force consisting of local, state and federal officials as well as business and labor leaders has been formed to try to save the jobs.

Tony Olsen, field organizer for the American Postal Workers Union in Wilmington, said he would like to present McCain with petitions bearing 12,000 signatures urging DHL to keep the jobs at the hub.

“We’d be asking for action, not words,” Olsen said. “Anybody that wants to be the next president of the United States recognizes that this is one of the major things facing Ohioans. The next president needs to deal with this issue.”

Olsen said he is concerned about reports of McCain’s past connection to DHL.

In 2003, then-lobbyist Rick Davis who is now McCain’s campaign manager, lobbied Congress to accept a proposal by the German-owned DHL to buy Airborne Express, which ran the Wilmington hub, according to a story published Wednesday by The Plain Dealer.

McCain prevailed in his objection to a proposal being inserted in a military spending bill that would have banned foreign-owned carriers from flying U.S. military equipment or troops, a restriction that would have made the Airborne Express purchase less attractive to DHL, the newspaper said.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said in a statement that the senator was against the proposal because it could have hurt the military’s airlift capabilities in time of war and because defense contracts should provide soldiers with the best equipment and support and the best return to taxpayers, not reflect protectionist concerns.

At the time of DHL’s acquisition of Airborne, no one anticipated an impact on the jobs in Wilmington, Rogers said. And he said Davis has not worked with DHL since 2005, years before DHL announced plans to move the work away from Wilmington.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, called on McCain and Davis to use their past links with DHL to urge the company not to move the work.

“John McCain through this whole thing has said zero about his connection to DHL,” Brown said Wednesday. “We need their help. I’m accusing them of indifference.”

During a campaign stop in Dayton last month, Obama met privately with Raizk and other Wilmington-area officials to discuss the DHL situation. Raizk later said Obama told him getting help to the area would be high on his agenda as president.

“The presidential candidates showing this kind of interest can only be a positive for efforts to try to stop the transaction,” said Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher.

Stephen Brooks, a political scientist at the University of Akron, said McCain’s stop will raise the issue to the national stage, but only briefly.

“Both presidential candidates have to demonstrate how much they care about economic problems,” Brooks said.

Paul Sracic, chairman of the political science department at Youngstown State University, said voters often expect presidential candidates to promise them help in return for their votes, but that McCain’s visit to Wilmington will not likely alter DHL’s plans.

“Presidents can’t change a company wanting to move out of someplace,” Sracic said. “Nevertheless, candidates have to associate themselves with this. That’s how they win votes.”

DHL declined to comment on the involvement of the presidential candidates.

Rural southwest Ohio is a Republican stronghold. In the 2004 presidential election, Clinton County voters went for Republican George Bush over Democrat John Kerry by more than a 2-to-1 margin.

“That’s a Republican base, so the Republicans have to hold that. They can’t just ignore it,” Sracic said.

He said McCain will have to court traditional GOP voters who might be tempted to vote Democratic because their pocketbooks would be hurt by the DHL move and because Republicans often embrace a free-market, hands-off economic philosophy.

“This is damage control,” Sracic said.