Fourth of July ritual: Valley politicians on parade

By David Skolnick

When it comes to political events, the Fourth of July Parade in Austintown rarely disappoints.

As I watch the parade, I sometimes feel like I’m Marlin Perkins observing wild animals in their natural habitat on “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.”

For the most part, I go largely unnoticed by politicians — even though I’ve known some for more than 10 years — during the parade. State Rep. Ronald Gerberry’s wife, Kathryn, had to point me out to her husband, who then waved and said, “Hello.”

It’s an annual event that the entire Skolnick family enjoys although the parade gets shorter every year. It only lasted about 50 minutes last Friday. That was somewhat surprising because this is a big election year.

Traditionally, July 4 parades are a great opportunity for politicians to meet voters.

There were a lot of officeholders and their challengers at the Austintown parade.

There were also number of politicians running for re-election who skipped the event. Austintown has a lot of voters and plenty of them go to the parade to enjoy the event, catch up with friends and neighbors, and grab as much street candy as they can.

Ahh, street candy.

I could go on forever about it.

The concept of people throwing candy at strangers who happily pick it up off the street and eat it is odd. Of course that doesn’t stop me from participating.

I also have to admit that I find it funny when something mushy like Tootsie Rolls ends up in the middle of the street and gets crushed by a fire truck.

There are different styles to throwing street candy.

You have those who realize it’s a long parade route and ration the candy by throwing a piece or two at a time. Then you have those who buy dozens of bags of candy and throw 20 or so pieces at a time.

It seems like every year a politician nails me in the head with candy. They typically tell me later that it was an accident or they had bad aim or they didn’t even see me.

I got hit with candy this year.

It didn’t come from a politician. I was pelted at close range by a middle school cheerleader carrying a fistful of those hard peppermint candies.

I saw it coming. About 10 of them came at me and my family. I got hit by two. If it was something good like a cherry Starburst or a sour apple Now and Later, it would have been fine. I would have at least enjoyed eating those.

Luckily the cheerleader isn’t running for office because outside of butterscotch and the blue mint candies you wouldn’t eat even if you were starving, you can’t get much worse than hard peppermint Starlites.

Good candy equals votes!

As for making your way along the parade route, politicians have two options: they can wave to the crowd from some sort of vehicle or float, or they walk shaking hands as quickly as possible.

Perhaps the strangest sight at the parade was an old fire truck driven by Nicholas Modarelli, an assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, with a banner to re-elect Paul J. Gains as prosecutor on the back. Modarelli looked like he was having fun driving the truck. Trailing right behind was Gains on a motorcycle.

Walking gets you closer to potential voters. It can also sometimes pose problems.

As you’re shaking hands, you can fall behind and hold up the parade, as U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan did. Also, if you’re wearing suit jackets and long-sleeved shirts, you’re going to get hot. That leads to sweaty hand syndrome, among the worst things a politician can do on Independence Day.

There is no doubt that Ryan has learned a lot about politics.

One important lesson is how to dress for a parade. During the 2002 congressional campaign, Ryan wore dark suit jackets and long-sleeved shirts. Shaking his hand wasn’t a pleasant experience.

Last year, Ryan kept the dark suit pants and dress shoes and wore a T-shirt. He did the same this year, but probably scored some big points with those at the parade. The dark shirt had “Fitch” in white letters.