A Fitting End–And An Ugly Reminder

Cincinnati, Ohio

We rose early in a Dayton suburb, giddy, still, about last night’s labor rally, and drove our pre-packed Trailblazer to Batavia, an eastern suburb of conservative Cincinnati to give a pep talk to canvassers at the Democratic headquarters–the very last event on our Ohio schedule.

Once again, we were in ruby red territory. Once again, Democrats were energized and on the attack.

Democrats stocking up on ammo / Photos: S. AuCoin

The Cincinnati Enquirer sent a reporter-photographer team for a story on Democratic “passion and excitement.” [Click here for it.]

(Clermont County Democratic Chairman Dave Lane was steamed when he emailed me to tell me about the piece. “The reporter called Sue, ‘Sarah‘,” he fumed. “Of all things, Sarah!” ) I could almost hear him spit out the word.

From there, we made a sentimental journey to the home of Mark Schmidt, a wonderful former staffer who I had not seen in twenty years. I had called Mark out of the blue about housing in Ohio and he came through for us brilliantly. (Once an AuCoin staffer, always an AuCoin staffer!)

Mark is an avid reader of this journal and joined us in Dayton for my labor speech and the next morning in Batavia. The 26-year-old kid I’d hired to straighten up the books at my congressional office is now a 46-year-old owner of a successful paving company with seventy employees, a husband and a father of a lovely daughter.

With Mark Schmidt, of Cincinnati: Once an AuCoin staffer, always an AuCoin staffer / Photos: S. AuCoin

We enjoyed a light brunch with his wife, Christy, and daughter, Ann, and a few neighbors and friends, most of them Democrats eager to discuss the race and excited by the prospect of an Obama presidency.

Yet even here, a reminder of right wing bigotry bubbled up. One of Mark and Christy’s neighbors, a woman who had a huge Obama-Biden sign in her yard, arrived with a copy of The Enquirer clutched in her hand and folded to an article about a local hardware store owner who has put a despicable race-baiting, anti-Obama sign in his shop window.

“We’ve got to organize a boycott!” she declared.

It was a sobering contrast to the small gathering in the Schmidt family room, which included two of Mark’s friends from boyhood–they had never lost touch with one another. One of them had driven Mark to Washington all those years ago in Schmidt’s blue pickup.

We felt the warmth of lifelong familiarity and friendship and I told Mark as we left that we could not let another twenty years pass before meeting again. Mark handed me Yahoo-downloaded driving instructions to take us through Cincinnati and I-74 West.

Still the staffer. Forever a friend.