The Center of America's Political Universe Has Spoken!

By Rich Kozlovich

Some years ago I was in Washington attending the National Pest Management Association's Legislative day and one of the speakers was taking questions, and naturally, I ask questions.  One of the provisos for that was to say what state you were from.  Of course I said Ohio.  His comment:  

So, from the center of America's political universe!  

I've found over the years as diverse as Ohio may be politically, it's still a Midwestern state with basic American values.  At one time the Virginia Colony was huge, going all they way to the Mississippi, encompassing Kentucky, Indiana, almost all of Ohio with a slip of Northern Ohio claimed by the Connecticut Colony, so the values are diverse going back all those years. 

Ohio's differences are especially noticeable between most of Ohio and the urban centers, especially if that district has a college town.  So, why does that matter?   

On May 3, 2022,  Nick Gilbertson posted this piece, Clean sweep:  All 22 Trump backed candidates won in Ohio and Indiana, saying:

All 22 candidates in Ohio and Indiana endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump completed a clean sweep of Tuesday’s primaries, indicating the strength of a Trump endorsement is as mighty as it has ever been.  Former White House political director Brian Jack exclusively tells Breitbart News:

What we saw in Texas earlier this year was confirmed yet again tonight: President Trump’s endorsement is the most important endorsement in politics. His endorsed candidates are a combined 55-0 in 2022 primaries, a continuation of the historic endorsement streak of success that started during his time at The White House.

One of the things I noticed over the years is that if it doesn't get started in Ohio, it doesn't seem to get started, and this may be one of the biggest "starts" in modern American history, and an indicator of how American's can and will re-invent themselves.  

This article by Joel Kotkin, America is quietly reinventing itself, points out it isn't just immigration that can cause a re-invention, it's also migration, as the author notes people are moving out of these expensive, over regulated  and failing Democrat controlled cities all over the nation.  

Millennials and minorities, priced out of Democratic metropolises, are now thriving in Florida and Texas. The future shape of post-Covid America is beginning to emerge. As demographic trends and surveys indicate, the pandemic has helped accelerate large, epochal changes in the nation’s geography.

It has reinforced the already existent trend of population dispersion, with people moving both to suburbs and smaller cities in ever greater numbers. The ascendency of sprawling Sun Belt metropolitan areas, like Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, Houston and Phoenix, has become increasingly clear and undeniable. The 2020 United States Census notes that four of the five counties gaining at least 300,000 people since 2010 were in Texas, Arizona or Nevada. Houston and Dallas acquired far more people than New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or even the Bay Area over the same period.  

 

This shift is in part the result of high taxes and regulatory policies, which tend to be far harsher in dense urban areas, leading to high housing costs. More than 85 per cent of the difference in the cost of living between the more expensive metropolitan areas and the national average is attributable to higher housing costs. California, which has sought to limit suburban expansion, struggles to build enough housing to meet even anemic population growth.

Let's compare Ohio to Pennsylvania.  

One of my correspondents in my e-mail group did a great analysis saying, compared to Ohio, Pennsylvania is a complete mess on the Republican side.   I will never understand Trump's endorsement of Dr. Oz, who I consider to be absolutely bizarre, and who holds dual citizenship with Turkey.  My friend went on to explain how Oz is a carpetbagger media star with very non-conservative views. 

For example, Oz has previously expressed support with Australian gun confiscation as well as stating support for gun control laws, as well as invasive treatment of trans-deluded kids. Now Oz is sorta saying he supports the Second Amendment, and of course he was providing a public service by discussing the transgender issue. 

 

His major opponent David McCormick is a veteran who does not run a commercial without his toting or shooting multiple rifles or shotguns.  But McCormick ran a big hedge fund with a lot of ties to China, and has made many public statements in support of China and Biden. Can you say “Romney Clone”? I knew you could. 

 

McCormick has already been charged with telling others he would run in the primaries as a Right conservative just to get the nomination. He seems like the kind of guy who would bond well with George W. Bush - and from Bush’s later presidency and beyond, this is not a compliment.  Pennsylvania Republicans may snatch defeat once again from the jaws of victory. 

 

Pennsylvania may be a lost cause, and I think the Republican Party as it's currently configured is a lost cause in a lot of states. Ohio has the same lost cause Republicans in leadership roles as do the other states, but the center of America's political universe has spoken, and that obvious need to dump these elites will resonate all over the nation as well as Ohio, and by 2024, that resonate may become an overwhelming symphony that may be impossible to resist.  

 

What I don't understand is how DeWine won the nomination.