Election hinges on working class

Since Bush took office,
Ohio has lost one in four manufacturing jobs.

DALLAS MORNING NEWS

PARMA, Ohio — The Muellers are getting by, barely. In October, Robert lost his unionized job on a road crew, a trickle-down casualty as Ohio hemorrhages well-paid manufacturing jobs. With tax revenues softening, there just isn’t as much money for road construction.

Thank goodness for Lisa’s job catching shoplifters at Kmart. His unemployment checks help, and he picks up work in snow removal and emergency flood cleanup. But “I had to go get food stamps,” he admitted. “I ain’t gonna lie.”

Meet Hillary Rodham Clinton’s base, her potential trump card as she fights to win Ohio on Tuesday and stay alive in the Democratic presidential race.

“I just love her,” said Robert Mueller, 21, who’s convinced he’ll find work if she wins the White House. “She’s going to be another Clinton to clean up after another Bush.”

And there’s 9-month-old Veronica. How will they ever save for her college? “I think about it all the time,” said Lisa Mueller.

Lunch-bucket Democrats, blue-collar workers, downscale voters, the working class — pollsters, strategists and candidates use all those terms and more. At Case Western Reserve University, political scientist Alexander Lamis likes the term “those who have less.”

Whatever you call them, Ohio — which is the second-largest prize in Tuesday’s voting, behind only Texas — could hinge on their verdict.

Both Democrats have tried vigorously to appeal to these voters, promising cheaper health care, investment in “green” industries to create jobs, programs to stanch the home foreclosure crisis and make loans cheaper, college tuition credits and so on.

Clinton long held a formidable lead among families earning less than $50,000. But as Barack Obama gained steam, he swamped her among those voters in several recent contests.

Parma is Ohio’s seventh-largest city, a mostly blue-collar enclave in suburban Cleveland that, like much of the industrial belt, has been through tough times. Both Democrats have visited recently.

It’s a common stop for candidates. Clinton, who enjoys backing from the mayor, came through two weeks ago, visiting Grace’s Grill. Sen. John McCain visited a different eatery last week. Obama held a rally Saturday night at a high school in Parma Heights, the next city over.

Ohio’s 6 percent unemployment rate is a full point above the national average. The state has lost nearly one in four manufacturing jobs — 224,000 in all — since President Bush took office.

With simultaneous primaries in Ohio and Texas, the candidates have had to tread carefully on issues like free trade. Both bash free trade with abandon in Ohio, while providing a more nuanced stance in Texas, noting the prosperity it has brought, especially along the border, while still arguing for tougher labor and environmental standards in future trade deals.

“Texas on balance has certainly benefited,” said Baylor University economist Joseph McKinney, an expert on free trade. “The industry mix in states like Ohio and Michigan has been such that they felt the brunt of both globalization and the technological change. ... People are anxious and any politician is going to have to respond.”

Many of the jobs Ohio lost shifted to Mexico where, for instance, auto components can be made at a fraction of the cost and still shipped quickly to assembly plants in the United States.

“It’s a real comedown, and a lot of it has to do with the failure of manufacturing to modernize,” said economist Susan Helper at Case, who studies outsourcing and manufacturing. “The Democrats are at least addressing the issue.”

Both, she said, offer proposals that would stanch the job losses, through investment in eco-friendly industries like wind or solar — promises they’ve made in Texas, too, raising the question of where exactly these jobs might go. Both also vow big investment in the nation’s aging infrastructure, which could disproportionately benefit Ohio, and promise to raise the minimum wage.

Overall, Helper said, it’s hard to say which candidate would serve blue-collar needs better.

“On their domestic policies, it’s kind of hard to tell the difference,” Harper said, and a judgment call could hinge on which would end the Iraq war sooner, freeing up huge sums for other priorities.