YSU Elex project | Jefferson in decline

Editor’s note: Youngstown State University journalism students in an advanced news reporting class traveled across the state in October to talk with people about the election. Their mission was to find out what issues matter and why. The work is published on vindy.com as part of partnership between the school and the newspaper.

By Leonard Glenn Crist

Youngstown State University

STEUBENVILLE — Quarterback Dwight Macon stepped into the pocket, the luxury of a strong offensive line, and fired a short pass to receiver Sage Cutri. Eight yards. No defense in sight. Touchdown, Steubenville Big Red!

Before Cutri had much chance for an end-zone celebration, the loudspeaker began to bellow with the sounds of a stampede. On top of the professional-looking scoreboard, a blood-red mustang, muscular and not inconsiderable in size, breathed fire — twice. The flames shot at least a yard into the sky and flickered in the wind.

Steubenville High School football games are played in Harding Stadium, a 10,000-seat venue locals menacingly call “Death Valley.” The Big Red has not lost a home game there in years. No different this early September Friday night. The Big Red steamrolled its competition, earning a 45-13 victory against the rival East Liverpool Potters.

“This valley, football is a big deal,” said Melissa Brown, a 36-year-old Steubenville resident with a niece in the high school marching band. “They love their high school ball.”

If, as Sen. Barack Obama infamously said, voters in small-town America sometimes cling to guns and religion because they’ve lost so much else economically, perhaps high school football can be added to that controversial list.

Like many places along the rust belt, Jefferson County, located along the Ohio River just south of Youngstown with Steubenville as its county seat, has seen its economy and population decline over the last three decades.

In the late 1970s, per capita income in Jefferson County was virtually on par with the national average. But during the Reagan and Clinton administrations, as the U.S. economy boomed, the residents of Jefferson County increasingly lagged behind.

Jefferson County reached an economic low point in the late 1990s when per capita income here was roughly 27 percent less than the national per capita income, according to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The situation had improved only slightly by 2005, when the county per capita income was 23 percent less than the national figure. That year, the average U.S. citizen earned $34,471 while the average Jefferson County resident made just $26,458.

Jefferson County’s population peaked in 1960 at just below 100,000 people and has declined ever since. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated roughly 70,000 lived here, a nearly 30 percent drop from its Baby Boom zenith.

Population projections show the decline is expected to continue at least through 2030, bringing the county population down to about 56,000, lower than it was in 1917, the year Rat Packer Dean Martin was born in Steubenville.

***

As John McCain and Barack Obama run, pass and tackle through the final quarter of their own political football game, voters in Jefferson County said improving the economy and increasing healthcare availability are the top issues on their minds

Melissa Brown, the Steubenville resident at the football game, said the local economy is “terrible.” But for her, the more important issue is healthcare.

“My father is 60 years old and he’s diabetic,” Brown said. “Working where I work at, at Wal-Mart, I see a lot of people there that are my dad’s age or older, looking for work. And a lot of them need it just for the medical benefits. I think that’s sad. I don’t think you should have to be 68, 70 years old trying to find work just to have medical benefits.”

Overhearing Brown speak and nodding his head in agreement, Mitchell Grim, a 22-year-old security guard working at the football game, had similar concerns about affordable health care. Grim, who lives in Jewett, in nearby Harrison County, said he cannot afford health insurance with his $7.15 per-hour job. It was the only job he could find, he said.

Grim recently suffered a shoulder injury, he said, and was forced to pay the medical expenses out of pocket.

“I had an x-ray and some prescription pills and it ended up costing me $756,” Grim said.

Grim does not have much faith Social Security will exist when he reaches retirement age.

“When we retire, when we get older, we don’t really have much to look forward to,” Grim said.

***

A few days before the big game, Obama visited Smithfield, in the southern part of Jefferson County, hoping to shore up support in a traditionally blue county that favored Hillary Clinton in the primary campaign.

McCain had yet to make an appearance in Jefferson County, though Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican who unsuccessfully sought his party’s nomination in 2008, recently served as a McCain surrogate during a speech at Franciscan University of Steubenville, a staunchly conservative Catholic school.

Both visits garnered coverage in the county’s largest paper, the Steubenville Herald Star, which published an editorial a few days after the Obama visit proclaiming the area “in play.”

“Where once there was a take-it-for-granted support for Democrats or an avoidance-because-it-won’t-matter attitude for Republicans, [there] is now a free-for-all,” the paper wrote.

Democrats in Jefferson County have a distinct edge in total registered voters over Republicans, but a strong base of unaffiliated independent voters has kept recent presidential elections close, according to data from the Jefferson County Board of Elections. The county swung Democrat in 2000 and 2004, choosing both Al Gore and John Kerry over President Bush. Bush, however, came up no more than 2,500 votes short in each race.

In the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Hillary Clinton received 67 percent of the county vote, crushing rival Obama by nearly 40 percentage points. Obama would, of course, go on to narrowly win the Democrat nomination. McCain had effectively secured the Republican nomination before Ohio’s primary and sailed through with 59 percent of the county vote in a five-candidate field.

Because of the strong preference for Clinton over Obama in southeastern Ohio, McCain campaign strategists believe the area is key to keeping Ohio a red state. Ohio is crucial for the Arizona senator because, as is often repeated, no Republican since Abraham Lincoln has captured the White House without winning Ohio.

In a strategy briefing released on John McCain’s Web site in June, Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, called southeastern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania “strong Clinton country.”

“There are strong indications in exit polls now that these Democrat primary voters are not supporting Barack Obama,” Davis said in June. “These were areas that were marginal for Bush, areas where he only won by slight margins or lost by slight margins. But with the influx of disaffected Democrats into this election cycle, our pathway to victory in both states could be clear.”

During the briefing, a map of the targeted counties was shown, including Jefferson County.

***

Brian Wilson, the young and untested new chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party (he’s only been on the job a couple of months and said his interview for this article was the first interview he’s ever given), has modest hopes that his county will turn red in November.

Wilson, a 34-year-old chiropractor from Bloomingdale, said he is “trying to establish the Republican Party more as a viable entity.”

Though there are no McCain operatives stationed in Jefferson County, Wilson has “been in strong contact” with McCain’s Ohio headquarters in Columbus, “working mutually together,” he said.

Wilson agreed that Jefferson County voters are most concerned about the economy and healthcare. He believes McCain has what it takes to address those issues.

“I think [McCain] has been shown to reach across party lines before and to get things done,” Wilson said. “I believe he’ll do the same if he is so privileged to become the president of the United States.”

Though Wilson certainly wants to deliver Jefferson County for McCain, he is not willing to guarantee it.

“It all depends on voter turnout,” Wilson said, noting 78 percent of voters are expected to cast a ballot on Nov. 4.

And don’t count out the volatile and unpredictable “October surprise.”

“Voters are fickle,” Wilson said. “Something could come out two weeks from now that could change the race dramatically one way or another.”

***

Back at the football game, both Melissa Brown and Mitchell Grim said they are Democrats who initially supported Hillary Clinton but have since come to accept Obama.

Brown said she “always loved Hillary Clinton.”

“If [Clinton] had that opportunity to be in office, I think she’d be good,” Brown said. “But she didn’t make it. I’m definitely going to be voting for Obama.”

Grim said he voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary only because of her husband, Bill.

“When [Bill Clinton] was president, the only downfall that he had in his presidency was he had a Republican House and a Republican Senate and he couldn’t get nothing passed. He tried to get universal healthcare in, but it wouldn’t pass. Now this year, we actually have a Democratic Senate and House. If we get a Democratic president, we can actually do some change.”