Vote for Joe

Average Joe Buckeye Blitz cont. In West Union, Ohio yesterday I met with volunteers Nancy Ames and Robert Weber at the Interfaith House. This two-story home in the heart of West Union, was donated by a Presbyterian couple 20 years ago. Funded by area churches and private donations, Interfaith House provides food, clothing, money for medication… for some 200 families a month. (According to Ms. Ames, Adams county is the 2nd poorest county in Ohio.) A front page article in West Union’s People’s Defender newspaper ran recently about our campaign. Editor Bill Lange noted we are asking many Americans to cut back on their lifestyles, so people in Adams County (and the ‘Adam’s counties’ of the Third World) can get some more solid, long term help. I then spent the afternoon washing and waxing our campaign vehicles for our final 6-week blitz of Ohio. Note: Today is the anniversary of “9/11.”

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.)