Lake County and Medina County

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has an interesting article up about Lake County having a good track record of voting the same way that Ohio votes in presidential elections. What stood out for us is this quote from the article:

Lake County voters tend to be economically moderate and somewhat socially conservative, says Jack DeSario, a political scientist at Mount Union College in Stark County and a bipartisan political consultant who has run about 100 campaigns, including several in Lake County.

DeSario's quote sounds like it could be about Medina County, except we think that Medina County is more economically progressive than perhaps Lake County. What is right about both counties, though, is that the voters are somewhat "socially conservative."

If you ask people in Medina County what liberals stand for, chances are they won't talk about universal health care or making it easier for unions to organize. When they talk about liberals they are usually talking about "guns, gays, and God." They are talking about social issues and they are talking about the tendency of some liberals to act as if they are better than others.

Liberals who act or come across as elitist don't do well in Medina County, ie, John Kerry. Liberals or progressives, however, who talk about economic issues and come across as people who don't think they are better than others can do well in Medina County. People like Ted Strickland, Sherrod Brown, and Donald Pease, the late Congressman from the 13Th District. Representative Betty Sutton is another politician who comes across as approachable and concerned about economic issues.

We have said it before, and we will say it again, the way to beat the faux social populism of the right-wing is be a genuine economic populist. We have a word to describe such Democrats in Medina County: elected.