Could It Happen? Maybe . . .

Last evening, Thursday, I attended a “Meet the Candidate” event in the cafeteria of the Jr. high school.  There was a total of  eighteen issues/candidates in attendance. The audience was in the range of 200 – 250 people.  The first two speakers were ‘pro’ for a health district levy  followed by a cultural center levy.  Then came 13 individual candidates, mostly Republican (this is John Boehner’s district) and Democrat, with two Libertarian and one Constitutional Party candidates.

Several things stuck out and there was one particularly hopeful moment

• There were about 25 – 30 white “Coussoule for Congress” T-shirts in the audience.
• There were only two people of color in the audience and they appeared to be high school students.
• Rep. John Boehner was the only person listed on the program that was not there.
• The Constitutional Party candidate for the OH 8th CD seat blamed 9/11 on Israel (audible gasps from the audience).

And the Hopeful Moment.

This District, even though it has changed size due to the Census over time, has been solidly Republican since the beginning of time.  Two years ago, Boehner carried the district by a 63% to 37% margin.

The most telling moment of the evening happened like this.  Every candidate from the lowest position, county Treasurer, to the highest, U.S. Rep to Congress, was given 2 min to say why the public should vote for them.  After the first person, there was applause.  The moderator asked the audience to refrain from clapping after each speaker.  There was a little applause after the 2nd speaker and we were cautioned again.  Then we went through ten speakers and no applause.  Then Justin Coussoule, Democrat for the 8th CD spoke for about a minute and a half.  There was about 5 seconds of wild applause and then people remembered they were not supposed to do that and stopped.

As I was leaving I ran into the person who ran the Obama office in the county 2 years ago.  While he was writing down the web site of his latest endeavor, his wife opined that “Boehner didn’t care about us.”

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