Truth-Telling From Real People on the Economy

Last night, Barack Obama, in his speech to the Wisconsin Democratic party top dogs, reported that he’s told “auto workers that they must change their ways.” Dear god. I bet blue-collar workers loved that. (See C-Span‘s American Perspectives video from last night.)

Here’s what one Honda plant auto worker in economically-suffering Lima, Ohio had to say about Hillary Clinton, via today’s Washington Post article, “Ohio Town’s Democrats See ‘Hope’ Differently“:

“Democrats are taking over Ohio,” [Bo Huenke] says to a chorus of protests. Or, “This war has been a disaster from Day One.” But, every now and then, Huenke makes the rare political assessment that most people here seem to agree on.

“Obama, doesn’t he sound a little naive?” asked Huenke, 52. “He stands up there, so optimistic, preaching about hope and change. It sounds great and everything, but come on. He doesn’t quite get it.”

Voters like Huenke present a difficult challenge to Sen. Barack Obama as he looks ahead to March 4, when primary battles with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Ohio and Texas threaten to halt his campaign’s momentum. In Lima and other fading manufacturing towns, he must confront difficult questions that go to the heart of his candidacy and its appeal to a broad section of Americans:

Can grandiose visions of hope and change resonate in places where change — in this case economic change — has brought housing foreclosures and economic ruin, where hope means avoiding another round of layoffs? Can a candidate whose support has been based on African Americans and upper-middle-class whites transcend class and race in places where racial tension still colors everything?

From Vindy.com’s newspaper (which covers Youngstown, Warrren and Columbiana, Ohio) “Clinton targets economy, opens Ohio campaign at Valley plant“:

… Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton kicked off the Ohio phase of her bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president Thursday with a visit to the auto plant. She addressed several hundred employees and political supporters as she outlined her plan to go after big oil and special interests in what she said is a drive to restore America’s middle class. [...]

Telling the crowd that one of her primary goals is to help rebuild a strong and prosperous American middle class, Clinton outlined a plan that she said would put $55 billion a year into the pockets of Americans by reining in special interests, going after excessive oil company profits, enacting a “fair credit for families agenda,” establishing a Student Borrowers’ Bill of Rights, creating a $50 billion strategic energy fund, restoring fairness to the tax code and putting an end to what she described as health insurance company discrimination.

She said she chose to unveil her plan and launch her Ohio bid at a plant like Lordstown that has weathered the storms and will continue to survive.

“Ohio is the heart of it all,” Clinton told the crowd. “Ohio represents the best of what we can do to build a strong and prosperous middle class.”

She said she envisions the building of a manufacturing belt that would surround Ohio.

Her plan would retool companies, provide universal health care, create 5,000 “green clean energy” jobs and, in general, help to revive the nation’s economy. It would also end corporate subsidies and loopholes for companies that decide to move jobs overseas.

Costs are going up while jobs and wages are going down, Clinton said, adding that she understands what families are doing to try to cope. …

Bo Huenke works hard: “He attaches a metal pipe, twists in four screws with hands that suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome and finishes just in time to stretch his back before the next engine arrives. His hands move from memory while his mind calculates the math: 28 seconds per engine, eight hours each shift, five days a week, 13 years until retirement. …”

Huenke says more in Ohio Town’s Democrats See ‘Hope’ Differently“:

[P]eople like Huenke, white and working class, who sense a disconnect between Obama’s inspirational rhetoric and life’s daily struggles. They prefer Clinton for her experience and economic policies, which they believe might stabilize Lima’s decline.

“A minority president or a woman president — both are hard sells in Lima,” Huenke said. “But Hillary’s easier, because you also get Bill. When you’re thinking politics around here, you’ve got to be practical.”

Here’s why Huenke — who suffers constant pain from two carpal tunnel-afflicted wrists and an excruciating shoulder injury — prefers Hillary:

A lifelong Democrat, Huenke went to a rally in Columbus last month and decided that Clinton’s economic and health-care ideas could help him endure another decade or so in Lima. He liked how the senator from New York outlined her plans with specifics. Obama, he thought, sometimes spoke about long-term goals and principles, which Huenke rarely had the leisure to consider.

In fairness, the WaPo story also covers a detailed story of an Obama supporter who’s working his heart out, and discusses some racial tensions in the area. But, you know, that’s “real” America, like it or not. I know where I live — where it’s very blue-collar (and where 700 people have just been laid off from the lumber mills because of the housing crisis, including a longtime friend who came over and cleaned my house yesterday, partly to help me and partly to pick up a few bucks so she can KEEP her house!) — that that will bother some people here. Already I’ve gotten lots of e-mails from people around here worried about the church that Obama attends, since that church considers itself more of an African than a U.S. religious entity; the e-mails included some falsehoods about Obama that I corrected in responses, but the part about his church is true (see Wikipedia on that). (Okay, okay — please consider that I am merely reporting what “ordinary” people are worried about. And those “ordinary” people vote because they consider it their patrioitic duty. I truly fear that they’ll find John McCain a more reassuring choice, especially on national security and what they’d consider more sensible approaches to foreign policy.) Trust me on this: The pipe-dream arguments of “latte liberals” won’t impress these people.

Huenke also adds that he doesn’t like the “messiah”-type approach of Obama’s campaign style:

“I mean, don’t get me wrong. He’s all right. If he gets the nomination, well, we’re going to have to vote for him and get behind him because we’re Democrats above anything else. But I just don’t like the preaching that he’s doing. He sounds like an old Bible-thumper to me. I like being talked to. I don’t like being yelled at.”

Then there are the words of many in Eastern Texas who came out to see Bill Clinton on Friday, via the Dallas Morning News:

He asked those in the crowds Friday to raise their hands if they knew someone without health insurance. At each stop, a large number of hands went up. In Tyler, one woman shouted out, “I AM someone without health insurance!”

Mrs. Clinton, the former president said, favors universal health coverage for Americans. Mr. Obama, while also advocating reform of the current system, has a more modest plan that would still leave millions of Americans without health insurance, Mr. Clinton said.

His occasional kind words for Mr. Obama on Friday were in contrast to his tenor in South Carolina.

[...]

But the East Texas crowds on Friday were glad to welcome him back.

Ranita Shows, an unemployed waitress, was the first in line to see Mr. Clinton’s speech at the Maude Cobb Convention and Activities Center in Longview. She arrived at 8:45 a.m. The former president was scheduled to speak at 12:15. He was an hour late.

“I didn’t want to take a chance and miss him,” Ms. Shows said, explaining her early arrival. “He was here in ’96, and I couldn’t get in. And I think this election is even more important than that one.”

She said she’s firmly in Mrs. Clinton’s camp, because of the experience factor touted by Mr. Clinton.

“I think her ideas and her thoughts are the best, across the board,” she said. “And she has the experience to rally people.

“Mr. Obama is a good man. He has good ideas. I just don’t believe he has the experience to rally people on both sides of the aisle.”

Albert Freeman, a retired gas pipeline worker, said he’s supporting Mrs. Clinton because the sagging economy has him worried. Many East Texans agree with him, he said, including many who have voted Republican in recent presidential elections.

Mr. Freeman said his retirement nest egg is a portfolio of stocks and other investments assembled over a lifetime of work. Now, he said, he’s watched those investments tumble, as the country lurches toward an economic recession.

“I don’t know where the end is,” he said. “And I’m not sure the Republicans do,” either.

He said he wasn’t at all bothered by the notion of Mr. Clinton as first spouse, chief domestic adviser and “co-president” to the next chief executive.

“He knows what he’s doing,” he said. “We were a heck of a lot better off when he was president than we have been for the last seven years.

“With Hillary, you get a second partner. There’s not a thing wrong with that.”

These ordinary Americans need help. My friend Cheryl who cleaned for me yesterday — and needed a few dollars — needs help! She’s terrified she’s going to lose her home. And she’s deeply worried for her mill plant co-workers who also have homes and families to support, and wonders what in the hell they’ll do since there are so few job opportunities in this rural area that is nearly wholly dependent on construction and lumber jobs (both of which are plummeting, with 700 laid off to date, and more to come).

And Hillary Clinton KNOWS that. She knows because she’s worked hard for them for 35 years.

Hilary doesn’t talk about change. Hillary is a change-maker.

As the Vindy.com article concludes:

“My opponent makes speeches. I offer solutions,” she said.

Change will happen whether people want it or not. The question is, who will deliver progress, she said.