I’ve been to Columbus a handful of times — mostly to fire people as the Human Resources Manager for a mergers & acquisitions division of an insurance company. It was a pretty good job, though, and allowed me to travel to other glamorous places like Oklahoma City and Glastonbury, CT to fire other people. (It was pure awesomeness, right?)
I remember being impressed by Ohio — the people were nice, the restaurants were delicious, and the employees were very gracious when escorted from the building. I remember one woman thanking me for helping her to both retire and get a severance package at the same time — as if she just hit the jackpot! This was late 2001 in a time when 9/11 was being blamed for the economic downturn in the insurance industry. People were kind to me and understood that I was just doing my job.
Now it’s 2008 — seven years later — and Ohio isn’t much better than it was during my visits in the early stages of Bush’s presidency. The state of Ohio, while a little better off than Michigan, has been hit hard by America’s crappy economy. I also know that Ohio has made a huge sacrifice for the war in Iraq (and we all know how I feel about Iraq).
Tomorrow’s primary election is predicted to be very close, and I’m not willing to call a victory for either Clinton or Obama in Ohio or Texas; however, I am willing to predict that the voters of Ohio are sick & tired of being escorted off the premises by snot-nosed HR people like me (and making disproportionate sacrifices for a war based on false premises).
Let’s just hope that the predicted ice storm in Ohio holds off until Wednesday! At the end of the day, a vote for a Democratic candidate in Ohio is a vote for change. That’s enough for me.
