24 August 2008

Another Visitor's Impressions of Cincinnati

A reporter from the Independent, Ireland stopped in Cincinnati last week to get a feel for Obama's chances. Not very deep reporting here, mostly talked to some taxi drivers and typed his pre-conceived notions:

..."As Ohio goes, so goes the nation.'' With its blend of black and white, rich and poor, industrial and agricultural, the state is a microcosm of America -- and Cincinnati and its surroundings are, in turn, fairly representative of the state.

On one side of the city you find Indian Hill, the third-most lucrative zip code in the US for Republican fundraisers, who recently brought in $2.5m there in a single night. Across town, it's a different story. Every other shop is boarded up. There are no nice lawns and no Stars and Stripes at the bottom of the garden, just rusty old cars.

... in the Cadillac Ranch bar on Vine Street. Many of the Democrats moaned about Obama's inexperience and his flip-flopping on policy, but what became clear after a few drinks was that the real issue -- as it had been for my acquaintance at the airport -- was his skin colour...

I did find at least one Obama supporter -- the taxi driver who took me out to the suburb of Northside the next morning...

...Probably my best insight into Ohio's floating voters came in Mount Adam, the most bohemian district of Cincinnati.

...how Ohio swings will depend on whether the first-time voters dreaming of "hope'' outnumber the closet bigots who say "nope''. Based on what I've seen, I'm going with "nope''.

9 comments:

VisuaLingual said...

Wow, I love it when you find this kind of stuff! The misperceptions are more interesting than the accurate perceptions -- Mt. Adams is bohemian? Wow, who knew!

CityKin said...

Which part was the accurate part?

Mark Miller said...

I've been walking up and down Vine Street for hours now, and I still can't find that Cadillac Ranch he's talking about!?!

VisuaLingual said...

I just mean that anytime a visitor says something that's JUST true, it doesn't really register with me because it confirms whatever I already think. The misperceptions definitely make me wonder, like how Mt. Adams might be perceived as bohemian, or how Northside may seem like a suburb.

Anonymous said...

The scary thing is that I actually remember when Mt. Adams was Bohemian! Now, as far as Northside being a suburb, if he says it then it must be true.

Matt said...

Yeah, great find, Mike... or should I say, unfortunate find.

Another pro-Barack "reporter" using loosely scripted generalities about societal divides and race as a scare tactic to try and get the vote. I assume he didn't make it through Hyde Park or Clifton Gaslight and see all the pro-Obama signs in the front yards. And he obviously isn't aware that Obama won the primary in Cincinnati, and is the Demo-nominee.

What a hack.

[Stating the obvious, huh.]

ThatDeborahGirl said...

I think it's obvious he mixed up Mt. Adams and Northside and simply called one the other.

A year or so ago, he might have been right about the political climate here but I think folks here, even the die hards, are becoming slowly enured to an Obama Presidency.

Randy Simes said...

This article is inaccurate in so many ways it is hard to believe. At first I thought this kind of poor journalism was limited to local media-types, but now I wonder if it is something in the water here.

Quimbob said...

He lost me with, "Cincinnati and its surroundings are, in turn, fairly representative of the state".