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McCain, Palin to lead Valley ‘Victory’ rally
This is Sarah Palin’s first visit to the Mahoning Valley.
VIENNA — Looking to make inroads in the Democratic-dominated Mahoning Valley, John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, will have a public rally here Tuesday.
Joining McCain at the event will be Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, his vice presidential running mate.
The two will have a “Victory 2008 Rally” at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Winner Aviation at the Youngstown-Warren Airport in Vienna. The doors open at 1 p.m. Free tickets were to be given away beginning this afternoon.
The Winner hangar was the location for an Oct. 27, 2004, campaign rally for President Bush. The rally, six days before Election Day four years ago, attracted more than 11,000 people.
“Republicans see a chance to pick up voters in this area because Barack Obama [the Democratic presidential nominee] has had a real problem connecting with working-class voters in the Valley,” said Paul Sracic, chairman of the Youngstown State University political science department.
Though this is McCain’s third visit to the Valley since April, this is the first time Palin is campaigning in the area.
She’s the real attraction, Sracic said.
“I’m not sure John McCain could fill the hangar without Sarah Palin,” he said. “McCain is smart to have her by his side. She excites voters. She seems to have made a connection with people the same way Obama does.”
Palin is having fund-raising events, with the top ticket going for $25,000, in Canton, Cincinnati and Dayton early next week.
Mark Munroe, Mahoning County Republican vice chairman, saw Palin speak when he served this month as a GOP convention delegate.
“For the two of them to come right now is fabulous,” he said. “They see this area as a place to make inroads.”
Mahoning and Trumbull gave 60 percent of its vote to Democrat Al Gore in 2000 against Bush, and 62 percent to Democrat John Kerry in 2004, also against Bush.
But both times Bush won Ohio, considered a key battleground state, by small margins.
An Ohio poll released Friday has McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona, ahead of Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, 48 percent to 44 percent in the state.
Results of a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey released Thursday have Obama leading 49 percent to 44 percent in Ohio.
“It’s a tight race,” said Anita Dunn, an Obama senior adviser. “Ohio is a battleground as it was in 2000 and 2004. We feel very good about where we are in Ohio.”
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Avon who once represented a portion of Trumbull County in the U.S. House, said he’s “always intrigued when McCain” campaigns in the Valley.
“He focuses on what’s going bad” in the area, Brown said. “I’m tired of John McCain coming in and focusing on the negatives.”
Obama will win Mahoning and Trumbull counties by “huge margins,” no matter how many times McCain campaigns in the Valley, Brown said.
Previously, McCain had a town hall meeting with some General Motors workers at the company’s plant in Lordstown and then went to a private fundraiser in Howland on June 27. He had a town hall meeting at Youngstown State University on April 22 that was open to the public.
Obama and U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, his vice presidential running mate, spent Aug. 29 at an Austintown hotel and ate breakfast at a Boardman restaurant the next morning en route to the funeral of a congresswoman in Cleveland.
Obama had rallies at Austintown Fitch High School on Aug. 5 and at YSU on Feb. 18.
skolnick@vindy.com