Buckeye Back Road Tour completed: We ‘fought the good fight.’ For the past three days, we continued on through central Ohio, stumping in places like Yorkshire, Versailles, Plain City… On Election Day (today), we were in Columbus where we passed out campaign information at a polling place on the Ohio State University Campus. I also talked with Deryck Spooner who was here from D.C. pushing for the passage of Issue 2 here, which is about backing a Clean Ohio initiative. He is with The Nature Conservancy and told me he believes climate change is real and a definite threat. He pointed to shifts in weather patterns, the significant melting of polar ice caps, rising sea levels… He said part of the answer is cap levels on carbon emmissions, especially among coal, electric and oil companies. And using a “market approach,” he said he would propose that these companies get dollar value “carbon credits,” for each pound of carbon that’s not produced… We, too, believe climate change is a clear and imminent threat that needs to be addressed dramatically, and now. For more… Note: At this polling place there were some 10 Democrat volunteers passing out literature and I was told there were some 81 “staging areas” around Franklin County where volunteers were prepped and sent out to the different polling stations. Meanwhile, it was just myself and our family. The ‘staging area’ being our small motor home up the street. And so it goes…
11/1/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour cont.: We continue to stump in Ohio. Last night we stopped in tiny Waynesville, Ohio, where ‘Joe the house painter (that would be me)’ met ‘Steve the house painter’ in the Fan Pizza joint (sports motif). Steve’s business is called Hahn’s Wet Paint and his work van sports different colored hand prints, from various customers. Neat idea, nice guy… After talking to Steve, I put up some fliers and passed out some cards and bumper stickers in Waynesville. Well, it’s either that or multi-million dollar TV ads. And those ads anymore seem, oh, so passee. Don’t they? …Today we traveled to Botkins, Ohio, where I talked with Ron Steinke at a ‘Mom & Pop’ type downtown service station. Ron told me the station has been in his family for five generations and he proudly showed me a series of photos (some sepia-toned even) of his dad, grandfather, great grandfather… all at the station over the years. It opened in 1905. A sign at the station at the time read: “If our work pleases you, tell others. If not, tell us.” Ron said the heritage, often lost in today’s society, was for the sons to work with their father at the station. These stations, these small town businesses, were once the backbone of our country. Sadly, however, they are gradually becoming extinct. How we would work to change that is.. I passed on a button and a campaign card to Ron who said he was independent and would consider us. Note: The polls are still showing we’re behind (Ron’s consideration notwithstanding), but we’re confident it’s just the “margin of error.” Although my wife, and campaign manager, Liz, said I have to stop telling people that.
10/31/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour cont.: We continue on down the Old Lincoln Highway (Rte. 30) through Ohio. During an interview with a newspaper in Wooster, Ohio, I said there is a death on our nation’s roads every 13 minutes. “That’s like a half full airliner going down in this country every day,” I said. Our proposal is to reduce speed limits, across the board, significantly. I mean that’s only common sense… I also gave a talk at St. Mary’s Church in Wooster, explaining that for abortion to end, pro-Life people need to create the same type of non-violent social unrest that was created in the South to finally end Segregation. More common sense… We then headed to Mansfield where I gave a talk to students at St. Mary of the Snows School. One boy asked: “If America is the richest country in the world, why are there homeless children?” I replied: “Because, well, not everyone is very good at sharing.” More common sense… Today the Mansfield News Journal noted that akin to “Joe the plumber,” I was “Joe the house painter,” with a twist. That is, I’m “Joe the house painter” running for president.
10/29/08
Buckeye Backroad Tour cont.: We drove into Canton, Ohio, yesterday where we met with supporter Dustin White. Dustin and our family stumped downtown, passing out literature and talking to people. Dustin did a lot of talking, but not just about the campaign. Dustin talked to a good number of street people who he also regularly sees at a drop-in center for the poor. A center he regularly volunteers at. Dustin treated each with a tremendous amount of human dignity, including giving several people financial donations… Dustin and his wife Jamie also hosted a talk for us later that night at their place. A group of students from nearby Malone College attended. At one point in the talk, I read an excerpt from a book I wrote about our run in Campaign 2000. Titled Back Road to the White House, the excerpt reads: I took our Sarah [then 3 and a half years old] on a walk through part of downtown Savannah, Georgia, at sunset tonight. A homeless man was sleeping on the steps of the U.S. Customs Building on Bay Street. Sarah was perplexed. I had to tell her the man was homeless. Then she was shocked. “We gotta help him Daddy! We gotta find him a home!” She implored… How do we solve the homeless problem in America? Everyone become three and a half years old again. Note: After reading this to the group and then explaining about our time with Dustin and the street people in the afternoon, I concluded by saying: “Apparently Dustin has found the secret to becoming three and a half years old again.” Note: We have just put up a new podcast feature on the site…
10/28/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour cont.: I did an interview on WHBC radio out of Canton, Ohio, today. (Barrack Obama was in Canton yesterday.) In regard to the financial crisis, I said I wouldn’t have bailed out Wall Street. “Stocks are merely a legalized form of gambling to make easy money. And I don’t believe in gambling,” I said. What’s more, I said the country might do well to actually slide (or crash) into a full-fledge Depression. Peoples’ priorities might finally shift, for the better… As an example, polls show that for a majority of Americans the economy is the number one issue. Meanwhile, I pointed out that some 4,000 babies will be killed in their mothers’ wombs in America today, some 24,000 people worldwide will starve to death today, scores of people will be killed in the Darfur Genocide today… And we’re more worried about our 401ks, ability to buy the bigger television set, etc… Just as we don’t need a bail out on Wall Street, we do need an attitude adjustment on ‘Main Street.’ A big one. Note: The radio host asked what our website was. When I said voteforjoe.com, he responded: “Is this like Joe the plumber?” I laughed and said no, this is like “Joe the house painter.” I also said, as ‘Joe the plumber’ is having an impact on the election, having campaigned in all 88 counties in Ohio at least twice over the years, ‘Joe the house painter,” might have an impact on the election as well. See if we impact the vote in Ohio (even slightly), and it’s as close as it was last time in Ohio, well, it might change the complexion of the whole race nationwide. Wouldn’t it? Note 2: This week we are doing a series of “whistle-stops” along the Old Lincoln Highway (Rte. 30) through Ohio. Come join us.
10/24/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour cont.: I gave a talk to a Political Analysis Class at Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, today. I turned it into a “town hall” style meeting and asked the students what some of the first things they’d do as president were… One student said she would push for an income ceiling for people collecting Social Security in retirement. For instance if you were making, say, $70,000 (arbitrary figure) for the year on pensions, stocks, etc., you wouldn’t be eligible to draw Social Security that year. Our platform calls for something similiar. For our position paper on Social Security, I interviewed former North Carolina State University instructor David Kalbacker. He said he “gladly pays” health insurance, car insurance, home insurance… Why not look at paying into Social Security as an insurance as well? That is, if you need it (like with these other insurances), then you draw on it. This would, indeed, help keep the fund bouyant and available to those who need it — for generations to come… Another student said today that as president he’d like to change the perception of the “War on Terror.” He said it shouldn’t be about nation against nation, religion against religion… but rather it should be about narrowing the focus to people who, well, commit terrorism… Yet another student said he’d raise gasoline taxes because oil is a finite resource that we are running out of. I said besides raising the gasoline tax, I would push for steep tolls on the Federal Highway System to discourage driving as much as possible — in the face of the alarming acceleration of global warming. “To just phase this conservation stuff in in a slow, incremental fashion, is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic at this point,” I said.
10/22/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour cont.: We’re back in Cleveland for our final pit-stop of Campaign 2008. We are now at the 83,000 mile mark of campaigning over the past three election cycles, including two solid years of campaigning in Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch noted last week that I said one of the first things I’d do as president would be to “get everyone in Congress, on Wall Street, on Main Street… calculators that worked!” During an interview with the editor of the Franciscan University newspaper in Steubenville, Ohio, last week, I said with 24,000 people starving to death in the Third World everyday (UN figure), I would push for much more foreign aid (this is currently 4% of the country’s budget). Yesterday I told a reporter from the BG News at Bowling Green State University, that one of the first things I’d do when I got to D.C. was “change the national symbol from an eagle to a falcon (BG mascot). On a more serious note, I told the reporter that reversing climate change would be a top priority… The Cleveland Diocesan newspaper this week noted that I see the global warming as a pro-Life issue. “No world. No life…” Coming up the eastern side of Ohio, we put up fliers in such towns as Wellsville, Ravenna, Lisbon… Well, when you don’t have the money for the million dollar advertising, a well-placed flier in a small town could be just the ticket to Pennsylvania Avenue. (And we continue to do this all without paid political consultants.) Note: ‘Joe the plumber’ from Ohio? What about ‘Joe the presidential candidate’ from Ohio, who could just impact the vote enough — to change the whole complexion of the race. Remember Ohio during Campaign 2004?
10/18/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour cont.: The Athens News did a story on our campaign that included: “I recently coached an inner-city Little League Baseball team in Cleveland,” Schriner explains on [his] website. “On draft day, I picked the kids who looked like they’d be picked last, first. And apparently I did pretty well with this because we lost almost all the games…” While in Athens, I also talked to Stephen Rounthwaite who is part Seminole and was protesting Columbus Day in front of the Athens County Courthouse. Rounthwaite, a street musician, was beating a drum next to a sign that read: You Support Columbus, You Support Terrorism. Our position paper on Native American issues reflects this as well. “They say Columbus ‘discovered America’ — but there were all these people living here already,” Rounthwaite laughed… Before meeting Rounthwaite, our family stood in solidarity with a group protesting for peace in front of the same courthouse. Two rather big guys, in their own show of protest, showed up and held McCain/Palin signs just adjacent to us. They said they were pro-War, and not only should the U.S. be in Iraq, we should be aggressive about making sure Iran didn’t develop nuclear weapons. “My boxing coach used to always say: ‘Come at ’em early and come at ’em hard,” one guy said. I asked this guy what he would do if someone was coming at him with a gun? “Get a gun and fight back,” he instantly replied. “So what if a country like us (read: U.S.), had a lot of nuclear weapons aimed at a country like Iran? What would be Iran’s natural reaction?” I asked. Note: While in Athens, I met Pastor Jeff Bartlett of the First Christian Church here. He had a wonderful spirit about him and told me he was trying to come up with a series of creative ways to interest college students in getting involved with church. The night I met him, he was doing a cookout with a small group of students on a hibachi next to a busy sidewalk. He was cooking: Spam. I, as tactfully as possible, mentioned he might draw more students with, oh, a different type of main course.
10/17/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour cont.: Liz and I talked to three classes at St. John’s Catholic High School in Bellaire, Ohio. The last presidential debate was the night before and it was dominated by talk of the economy. I said to the students that today in America (like everyday) some 4,000 little, innocent babies will be violently killed in their mothers’ wombs, yet a majority of Americans seem more concerned about gas prices, their 401ks, their ability to purchase the new TV… “What would that say about us as a society?” I asked the class. “Selfish,” a student instantly replied… At Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, I met with Economics professor Mike Welker. He told me we have become a tremendously complex society where, among other things, credit is embedded at almost every level. This allows for increased problems around living above one’s means, of greed… I asked him what it would take to shift this around at a grassroots level? He replied: “Spiritual conversion.” That’s what I love about Franciscan University. You can’t even take a Math course here without learning about God’s Natural Order… Earlier in the week, I talked briefly to an Ohio University Professor of Finance in Athens, Ohio. She’s from Africa and said that trying to practice consumer moral constraint — in the midst of so much “temptation” (read: advertising) in America — is extremely hard… A front page article in the Athens Messenger this week noted I “jog through the streets of Cleveland in an old pair of gray sweats and my favorite place to eat is the Old Fashion Hot Dog Place around the corner — chili dogs a buck and a quarter.” Rampant consumerism? Hardly… Actually, the Columbus Dispatch newspaper this week noted that if I was president the traditionally lavish Inaguaral Balls would be preempted by a simple rice and beans meal in solidarity with the poor of the world — the saving going to help starving children. The Dispatch also noted that the last thing I’d probably do on the first night as president would be to: shovel the walk. (I would be a Secret Service nightmare.)
10/16/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour cont.: This week we stumped at the Farmer’s Market in Athens, Ohio. Guitarist Billy Reiter, from Thornville, was playing “Neil Young stuff” there. I gave him a campaign flier and we talked briefly. Several days later I got an e-mail from him saying he was, indeed, going to vote for me. “We are no longer a government of the people, we are a government of the biggest bidder,” he wrote. What’s more, he said he was working on a blues-rock song titled: “Average Joe.” Stay tuned… At the Farmer’s Market, I also talked with organic farmers (and authors) Art and Peggy Gish. They are both Christian Peace Keeper team members who have spent a considerable amount of the time in the Middle East. Peggy wrote the book Iraq (A Journey of Hope). She had just returned from yet another trip to Iraq and said the situation, contrary to some media reports, is “getting worse.” Peggy gave me a copy of her book. I read a section that night that explained that after an insurgent attack, if our military has pinpointed that the insurgent(s) has come from a specific neighborhood, a platoon will go door to door, sometimes beating, sometimes killing, often times taking off to jail… a significant number of the men (fathers, sons, brothers…) in the neighborhood. One Iraqi told Peggy that one Hussein is gone, yet another — U.S. military — has arrived. Note: We got an “endorsement” from Georgia Dr. Jonathan Davis and an excellent write-up on his blog Gridbook this week.