Surprising developments in 2008 presidential primaries

Surprising developments in 2008 presidential primaries

We’re relevant again.

We being Ohio and Wisconsin and maybe even Pennsylvania. You know, those old industrial states.

Well, and Texas, too. But Texas is removed by time and geography and a lot of other things from the Rust Belt states. And Texas has been relevant for quite some time now, providing a president or vice president for 27 of the past 48 years.

Very few politicians or pundits had expected it to come down to this, a Democratic Party primary race that breezed through Super Duper Tuesday without even slowing down to pick up the presumptive nominee.

It’s still a very real race between two U.S. senators, Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.

So next week Hawaii and Wisconsin voters will decide to whom their 29 and 92 delegates will go. Those states may establish some momentum, but they won’t anoint a winner. On March, there are some big prizes to be won, 161 delegates in Ohio and 228 in Texas. An additional 188 delegates are up for grabs when Pennsylvanians go to the polls April 22.

For the rest of this month, Ohio is going to be one of the most popular states in the nation for Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama. Clinton, of course, was in Lordstown yesterday. U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy will be stumping for Obama in Akron, Cleveland and Youngstown this weekend.

Other surrogates for both candidates will be working the state hard, but Ohio can expect some level of undivided attention from each of the candidates over the next two weeks.

Target audience

Obviously autoworkers are a target group of both candidates. Clinton’s visit to Lordstown was her second in a week to a General Motors facility. Obama toured a GM plant in Janesville, Wis., Wednesday.

While the Mahoning Valley certainly has its share of workers in the auto and auto supply industries, it is also an area that has been struggling with the effects of vanishing manufacturing jobs in almost all segments of industry for three decades.

This is one of those parts of Ohio that was in the vanguard when those jobs began migrating and disappearing. There are other such pockets in other states. And many of them have something in common: They never really got to enjoy the boom years. While other local economies blossomed areas such as this struggled to survive.

Obama and Clinton both want the one thing that is just as valuable in the Mahoning Valley as anywhere else: a vote.

To get those votes, they are going to have to demonstrate to the voters here that they truly understand the dynamics of the region, that they have a plan to help and that they are committed to delivering on that plan if they are elected.

Being relevant is a two-way street.