View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

Where Obama and Romney are neck and neck

The first in a series of campaign reports from Hicksville, Ohio.

By Nicky Woolf

“A national political campaign,” the journalist HL Mencken once said, “is better than the best circus ever heard of.” Well, the circus is in town again. With the words, “I never said this journey would be easy,” Barack Obama sounded the starting-pistol for the sprint toward the Presidential election in November.

Six hundred miles north of where he was speaking at the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina, I had arrived in the town of Hicksville, Ohio, where I am spending the next sixty days following the campaign’s every twist and turn for the New Statesman.

The picturesque main street is dominated on one side by a water-tower that serves as town sign, and on the other by a vast, imposing and incongruous grain silo complex. Small family businesses – Jodee’s Video, Bob’s Auto Repair, Yoder’s Restaurant – jostle for attention as huge trucks rumble through on the way from foundry or farm to factory or silo. In the distance, the deeper thunder of industrial trains can be heard day and night. Further out, pretty and jumbled wooden houses skirted with verandahs share well-tended lawns strewn with children’s toys.

Hicksville may seem tranquil on the surface as it basks in the late summer swelter, but it sits atop a political hornet’s nest. Defiance County is in the middle of the rust belt, the north-eastern and mid-western industrial heart of the country. According to the Center for Automotive Research, the auto industry employs 1.7 million people in the US and supports 6.3 million more; most of them are nearby. Detroit, home of Ford and General Motors, is just a couple of hours drive to the north. Among car workers Obama should be on solid ground – his bailout of the auto industry saved hundreds of thousands of jobs – but outside the manufacturing towns, the countryside is small-c conservative heartland. Cars drive by tuned either to country music or Fox News Radio. If this was England, they’d all read the Daily Mail.

In 2008, Obama won here with 51.5 per cent, but now polls variously place the President and his Republican challenger neck and neck. Ohio is the battleground state; possibly the most important in this election. Both parties know it. The President was in Toledo, a bigger town just up the road, on Monday, where he spoke almost entirely in football metaphors (the season opened Wednesday night with the Cowboys beating the Giants); Vice-President Biden will be in the state this weekend – his third visit to the state in just over a week – and former President Bill Clinton will be campaigning here too.

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

Mitt Romney’s campaign came through here last month, and his wife Ann was in the state a few days ago, trying to rally support for her husband among women voters. No Republican in modern times has won the White House without Ohio’s 18 electoral college votes, and Romney is playing a strategy in which he concentrates his mighty campaign finances on a few key states, including this one. On Thursday, his campaign announced a major purchase of television advertising here, as well as in Florida, New Hampshire, and five other swing states.

“If this President wins another term,” says Connie, who runs the only hotel in Hicksville, “we’re all screwed.” She is not alone in this. “I’ve been reading about this President, and what I read scares me,” says Mary-Ann Barth, who edits the Hicksville News-Tribune. Painted on a high street junk-shop window in big letters is: “One Big-Ass Mistake America – Cut Tax Spending”, and calls for the terrifying prospect of a “PALIN-BECK 2012” ticket.

Even Hicksville is not entirely lost to the President, however. On top of the scrawls in the window, some rebellious soul has stuck a small, lonely but audacious Obama-Biden sticker.

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU