In Wintersville, Ohio, it’s an autumn of discontent

October 28, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Los Angeles Times

WINTERSVILLE, Ohio

They gather at this old watering hole every week, watching Steelers games and catching up, talking about their children and grandchildren, layoffs and job prospects, marriages and divorces. With the 2012 presidential elections looming and Ohio one of the most vital states on the path to the White House, talk easily turns to politics, and the salty language flows as freely as the Miller Light.

They are mill workers, retirees and skilled laborers, and all have felt the brunt of the recession and the ongoing decline of the steel industry in this swath of eastern Ohio. Though their politics are varied, there are several things upon which they agree: Unfair trade policies have neutered the region’s steel mills. Environmental bureaucrats are strangling the coal industry. Politicians of both parties use Social Security and Medicare to scare voters.

They are critical of President Barack Obama’s health care law, not because of high-minded debates about whether it violates the Constitution, but because they see their health care costs continuing to skyrocket in spite of it. They are skeptical of how a man as rich as Mitt Romney could ever understand their needs.

“I’ve never seen a multimillionaire have good intentions for working people or the poor,” says Terry Wood, 60, who retired after he was laid off from his last job as a steel engineer. The Democrat is voting for Obama, but isn’t thrilled about it, saying he rates the president a 3 or 4 on a scale of 1 to 10.

“Out of all the politicians we have in the United States, these two guys are the best we can come up with? It’s kind of sad,” the Steubenville resident says.

Romney’s supporters here share the lack of enthusiasm. Leslie Donley, 53, says she plans to vote for the GOP nominee. “But in all honesty, it isn’t about Romney. I don’t want the one that’s in there right now,” she says as she served drinks at the bar. “I don’t think it matters who gets in there; it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

The men and women who gather at J&J’s, a wood shack with no sign out front, are among the most coveted voters in the nation. They will decide a state that very well may determine who takes the White House. The campaigns are battering them with television ads, and calling and knocking on their doors by the millions. Tired of the torrent of negativity they see on television every night, they say neither Obama nor Romney has made a case for why he ought to be elected to the highest office in the land.

For all the millions spent, the campaign has, in every meaningful sense, passed them by.