One of my favorite stamps is this one of Jackson, called the Penny Black. Old stamps really were artwork in miniature.
Posted on 09/26/2010 6:56:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
EAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio – Travel west along the old Lincoln Highway to this one-time “pottery capitol,” and the landscape maintains Allegheny mountain vistas as the Ohio River curls through the hills and hollows of Columbiana County.
In the place of a once-robust pottery industry, a museum is dedicated to the area’s ceramic plants. The 300 factories of old are now down to one that produces popular, colorful Fiestaware.
“We are pretty much devastated,” says Mayor James Swoger of his town’s economy and the state in general.
He describes East Liverpool as a stronghold of Democrats, including himself: “I am a Democrat but largely because I was born a Democrat. It was passed down by my father.”
So far, the two-term mayor doesn’t like what Democrats have done with their majority in Washington. “Plain and simple, we are left out,” he says.
All you need to know about Swoger’s character is how he handled the proposed closing of the town swimming pool because of budget constraints. He and his wife, Amy, pulled the money out of their own pockets to keep it open; now he’s the lifeguard, and she runs the concession stand.
“It was the right thing to do,” he says matter-of-factly.
Swoger is unhappy with Democrats as a whole and has no problem voting against his party, at least for governor, in November. “I don’t believe I can vote for him,” he says without hesitation when asked about incumbent Ohio governor and friend Ted Strickland.
Swoger is a key link in Democrats’ potential chain-reaction collapse – party dissatisfaction with its present administrations, locally and nationally, refuting the narrative that it’s just the conservative Tea Party movement that is unhappy.
Swoger, along with numerous disgruntled Democrats here, are a picture-perfect example of the 21st century Jacksonian Democrat. Born of skepticism with Eastern elites and big government, they embrace a populism and a distrust of the powerful that are part of our national DNA.
Named for the “scrabble” that ushered Andrew Jackson into the White House, Jacksonians originally were farmers and small-town merchants in the Appalachians and points west who did not trust Eastern seaboard merchants, bankers and industrialists or their backers in state capitols and in Washington.
“From our beginning until Jackson ran for president in 1824, the founding generation of rich planters and business folks from the coast ran the government,” explains Robert Maranto, a University of Arkansas political scientist.
He points to a sense that those elites too often favored friends and family through such means as a national bank or government patronage. “And that they thought they were better than everyone else.”
Sound familiar?
“The Jacksonian Democrats of today are represented in the more highly frustrated elements of the electorate,” says Keystone College history professor Jeff Brauer.
In the past, Jacksonian Democrats could be found among Reagan Democrats and Ross Perot independents. Today, elements of Jacksonian democracy are found in the dissatisfaction of blue-collar Democrats and in the disenchantment of independents, both of whom believed they voted for change in 2008.
“While it is not a perfect correlation, it is in the Tea Party movement where the strongest connections to Jacksonian democracy are seen,” Brauer says.
What bonds the Tea Party movement with Jacksonian Democrats is the charge against political and economic elites, Washington and Wall Street insiders; nothing could be more Jacksonian than that.
Along Washington Road in downtown East Liverpool, a handful of antique shops sit in the shadow of the majestic Potters Savings & Loan, now a PNC bank branch. People wandering in and out of stores are eager to share their thoughts about how Washington has treated them but are reluctant to share their names.
Their bottom line: They are far from satisfied with their own political party.
“The Washington Democratic narrative is that the populists are a bunch of hate-filled, ignorant yahoos clinging to their God and guns in tough times,” says Maranto. “That is not accurate, nor is it helpful.”
All along the “blue highways” of the Rust Belt from Pennsylvania to Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, many Democrats say they are looking for a better approach to smarter, more responsible, accountable government than they have seen from the Obama administration.
The Jim Swogers of America, who work hard and play by the rules, may not be Tea Partiers, but their votes will be just as potent – perhaps more so – for Democrats in November.
Jackson was a bit of a mixed bag, and it seems that everyone has reason to like him or dislike him. Personally, he’s always been one of my favorites — and I’ve long thought that the Federal Reserve should be treated as Jackson treated the Second Bank of the United States.
I found this helpful in explaining why some people, who I admire and are smart business people, could have ever voted for Obama. To a man, those people now realize what a disaster Obama has been. November is going to be really interesting.
I grew up near there.
The people got nothin. They havent for 35 years.
I have met more people FROM the area in past years than I care to think about.
It’s a beautiful area but the place is hopelessly blue.
Ytown is going to re elect Trafficant fresh out of the federal pen.
Mark my words. He gives them crumbs.
Obama and the others are Stalinist Democrats. They support union LEADERS, screw workers by letting in millions of Mexicans (and other), will cause further unemployment with green madness, etc., etc.
Why is the Ohio pottery business dead? Because it can be made cheaper and without regulation in other countries.
Who supports illegal immigration, higher environmental and other regulations, expensive labor unions and crippling government waste? DEMOCRATS!
So if they continue to vote Democrat, they are just plain stupid and deserve the mayhem they voted for.
One of my favorite stamps is this one of Jackson, called the Penny Black. Old stamps really were artwork in miniature.
A smart person would start a pottery business there and sell it to the rich azz liberals with big wallets and bleeding hearts.
Say! I have an idea!
This is almost exactly what I wanted to say yesterday on that Conn. Senate race retro-ad 'JFK tax-cut' thread.
Pollsters employed by Tea Party-type candidates are finding favorable ground with Jacksonians. And the more Blue Dog seats we flip to conservatives in Nov., the further you can isolate and alienate Bobo in the run-up to 2012, to the point where he may very well run like did Carter in 1980: disinterested, dull and disheartened.
Gotta pay those union wages.
And suckers for every two-bit demagogue who plays on their emotions and promises to give them something free.
BINGO!
I see it over and over.
They promise to keep the GM Lordstown plant open and the people say Yay! the unions are making a comeback!
The union is mighty and strong!
Meanwhile, they scale back the work and 50 other places go out of business due to taxes and over regulation.
But Hey! The Union is looking out for us!
I will say, I was speaking to a BLUE BLUE dem yesterday back there and she is FED UP.
If I was to dig a little deeper I am sure she would tell me its Bush’s fault.
But the discontent is there.
A good stamp for and Obama Portrait would be ‘Postage Due”.
This is the kind of shit that goes on back there http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covelli_Centre
Trafficant gets this thing built (it opened while he was in jail)
Moneys get spread around. GM Lordstown got their cut.
Now Covelli controls it.
A bunch of union goons got rich building it and the place sits empty.
It was a boondoggle.
Now unemployed folks have a place to spend their money /s
It's always "So far, so good, so far, so good, so far..." .
Ahh... NE Ohio, the land of benevolent goombas...
Little chicago...
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