Vote for Joe

Average Joe Buckeye Blitz cont. Traveled to Mt. Vernon, Ohio yesterday where we attended a Ohio Department of Natural Resources seminar. In an excellent presentation, ODNR officer Mike Miller said the more “diverse” the eco-system, the more stable it is. However, he said current levels of farm herbacides and pesticides are significanltly hurting wildlife populations and throwing eco-system stability off. He said, for instance, the frog population along the banks of the Kokosing River here has dropped dramatically in recent years. We then headed further south on Rte. 13, stopping at the Hufford General Store in tiny Uttica, Ohio. It has been family owned and operated for 45 years. Our platform asks people to stridently support these local “mom & pop” stores in downtown districts (decentralism) — so they aren’t run out of business by the “big box” stores.

Average Joe Buckeye Blitz cont. In honor of Labor Day, I spent part of the weekend talking to people about, well, labor. (And we continue to do this all without paid consultants.) After taking my picture, Crescent News (Defiance, Ohio) photographer Thom Born told me he goes out of his way to: “buy American.” We promote that too because we believe, strongly, in: local production for local consumption. And we don’t support NAFTA (as it currently stands), as an example. On a research trip to Juarez, Mexico three years ago, we learned the Mexican government stopped helping subsidize the subsistance farmers in the interior of Mexico after NAFTA passed. At the same time the multi-national company factories started going up on the northern border of Mexico. With the Mexican farmers losing their land in the interior, Mexico then had an influx of people to the north to work in the factories. At the time we were there, these jobs paid a mere$3 a shift, mothers and fathers were working two shifts, and the children were out on the streets — when they weren’t in their homes (read: shacks) with no running water, no electricity. [We might want to think about all that (morally) the next time we’re in Wal Mart trying to get the cheapest price on something.] Our platform calls for more social justice outreach into the Third World so, for instance, Mexican subsistance farmers can stay on their land. What’s more, through expanded Peace Corps work, and the like, we would also support a lot more initiatives to help create more sustainable local economies in general in the Third World. And back in this country, we’d push for much more economic equality. In Mt. Vernon, Ohio, I interviewed Whitney Wolfe, 18, an employee of McDonald’s. She is a high school senior who also works 30 hours a week. While she said she liked working at McDonald’s, long term here ideal job would be a more lucrative “9 to 5 desk job.” She continued: “I want to make decent money (she currently makes $6 an hour) and have benefits for my kids.” I couldn’t help but think about all the mothers, and fathers, currently working in the fast food, or other service industries, who are making $6 an hour, with no benefits. In the book: Nickled and Dimed (On Not Making it in America), the author points out that those working in these service industry jobs are often exhausted by the end of the day and barely treading water financially. Having worked at my share of these types of jobs, I know you also have little time, or energy, for family, community involvement, or for that matter, politics. (So you seldom have the time, or energy, to lobby to change the system that’s keeping you stuck and impoverished.) And maybe, just maybe, the “haves” (read 9 to 5ers) want it just that way.

Average Joe Buckeye Blitz cont. Stopped by the County Fair in Van Wert, Ohio, yesterday. I was particularly drawn to an “Old Fashioned Farmers Display” that featured small tractors from the 1930s and ’40s. We would actually like to see a return to this “smaller technology” on farms, in tandem with a dramatic come back for the small family farm in America. “We are not only losing these farms, we are losing a way of life that is so important to the fabric of this country,” I told the Country Today newsaper in Wisconsin during a Election 2000 campaign tour. As the farm machinery got bigger and bigger, it opened the door for bigger and bigger farms, with the far end of the continuim being corporate mega-farms. This scenario, we believe, is often driven by greed. While Amish farmers, for instance, stay small because they know the family up the lane needs to make a living off the land as well.

Average Joe Buckeye Blitz cont. Back in Bluffton, Ohio today where my wife Liz (and campaign manager) and myself are filling out the election forms to be a write-in candidate for most states. Not hard if you have a party machine; but a rather daunting task for a small family from the Midwest. (Especially when you have to wait for the kids to go to bed before you can get much done.) The Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum newspaper ran an article on my campaign stop yesterday. It said I had a number of “well thought out” platform points. One I had discussed with them revolves around agriculture. We’d like to see agriculture classes introduced in both rural and city schools — taught by area farmers. What’s more, we’d like to see regular field trips to the farms, not just to observe, but to work on the farms. This, we believe, would put students more in touch with the land, with the cycles of nature, and so on. What’s more, what about city kids who might have a leaning toward farming — but are never exposed to it in a hands-on fashion? (We would also like to see a return to many more small family farms.)

Average Joe Buckeye Blitz cont. Stumped with a morning group at the Pelican Coffee Shop in Bucyrus early today. There were some 25 men with, I was told, an average age of 80. (The group has been meeting since 1958 and is kind of the behind-the-scenes voice in town.) Howared Pfleiderer, 84, told me they are often joined by the mayor, police chief, council people… I told a reporter for the Telegraph-Reporter newspaper here that I would like to see these men also regularly joined, “elbow to elbow,” by area youth, young adults, middle-age adults… like it was in the old days. Anymore, I then told radio reporter Becky Abernathy of WQEL here, the seniors in America are cast aside in nursing homes, retirement communities, RV travel, “when they have all these years of accumulated life experience and wisdom that is going unheard.” Social security is not just about maintaining a monetary fund, I said. I then met with Floyd Reinhart of nearby Sycamore, Ohio. He is a retired district director for the U.S. Farm Service Agency. We talked about strategies for steering the country back to more small family farms, which was once the fabric of America. In addition, Reinhart is also active in the Catholic Rural Life Association. He said in this area, the Association is considering a program to inspire local farmers to set aside an acre of land for gardens and so on. Food grown on these parcels by local volunteers would be sold at farmer’s markets, and the like, with the proceeds going to provide seed money for poor, rural farmers in the Third World. (I was so impressed with Mr. Reinhart’s ideas and enthusiasm to make a difference, I couldn’t help but think: ‘Wouldn’t this small town man be a good Secretary of Agriculture?’.) To round out the morning, I stopped at Liz Tiball’s eighth grade class at Holy Trinity School here. The older students, I learned, are making items for the younger ones which will be won at games, etc., at a yearly Mardi Gras event. All the proceeds go into the Toledo Diocese mission to help in Zimbabwe.