McCain reaps grim demonstration

By Ed Runyan

The group feared that police would be trying to close down the demonstration.

HOWLAND — Some of the same demonstrators who had asked people at Trumbull County Republican Party headquarters to pressure presidential candidate John McCain to give them one of his seven homes were back Tuesday to hold a mock funeral for jobs.

Six people dressed as the Grim Reaper and wearing John Mc- Cain faces from the group Change to Win staged the demonstration at the GOP offices on Elm Road. They arrived in a “Worse Than Bush.org” bus.

The group ends a nine-state, six-week swing through battleground states this week.

Speakers also offered statistics on the number of factory closings and mass layoffs that have occurred in Ohio since Republican President George W. Bush took office eight years ago: 1,087, or 2.5 per day.

“Cheap political stunts will do nothing to change the fact that Barack Obama lacks the understanding and judgment to help working families in the Mahoning Valley who are facing great economic challenges. Obama’s tax-and-spend policies would destroy any hope of job creation at the worst possible time,” said Paul Lindsay, McCain-Palin spokesman.

Culinary union member Jennifer Grote from Las Vegas said McCain has contributed to factory closings by supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade agreements that have hurt blue-collar workers.

“He’s all about helping himself and his rich buddies,” said Chrissy Heineman, executive board member of Service Employees International Union District 1199. “We know they [Bush and Mc-Cain] have nothing for us.”

Bill Padisak, president of the Mahoning/Trumbull County AFL-CIO, said building trades union members have told him that a 100-point drop in the stock market costs each member of the building trades union 1 percent of the value of their pension. With Monday’s drop in the stock market of nearly 800 points, members lost nearly 8 percent of their pension value, he said.

Since McCain voted with Bush 95 percent of the time, it’s likely that McCain’s policies will have the same negative effect on the economy as Bush’s policies, Heineman said.

She added that Change to Win was unable to bring someone to the event who lost his job to a plant closing because the group feared that police would be trying to close down the demonstration.