did I spell investigative wrong? Anyway, Fayette County, Take TWO
Washington Court House - The county seat of Fayette County was alive Saturday with a street fair that shut down almost six blocks of road. Shop doors were open, a Ferris wheel turned, and children ran to show their parents their hard-won prizes of goldfish and stuffed animals.
It’s a small-town slice of the American dream, a rural county in a battleground in America that is often neglected. Ohio and its 20 electoral votes are always important during election years, and each candidate for the presidential office has been making their presence known. McCain, Obama, and their various entourages have been seen around Ohio with regularity, glad-handing and mugging for the press at mom-and-pop restaurants throughout the state.
But have they seen Ohio?
Fayette County, deep in the southeast of the state has sluggishly climbing population, still maintaining 84 percent of its property for cropland. While the vast majority of registered voters in Fayette are non-partisan- 11,390 to the total registered 15, 588- they are the smallest percentage of actual voters, in the last election comprising less than 1.5 percent of the final tally.
After the non-active, non-partisans, registered Republicans outweigh the registered Democrats almost 3-to-1. But during the primaries, the turn-out on either side was incredibly close. The difference only favored Republican voters by 356 votes, according to the Fayette County Board of Elections.
With a population of about 28,000, 7.7 percent of whom live below the national poverty level. With economic worries on the rise, more and more people are wary of falling into that statistic themselves.
“I‘ve never been very political, but this election is making me mad, okay?… People saying Obama is Muslim… You can tell me he’s not qualified to lead, or he’s too young, but don’t make things up! This is a very republican area.” said Kendra Hernandez, a shop owner in Washington Court House, for about six years. “The economy sucks! I‘ve never seen the numbers that the previous owners had seen. No one does anymore… I should have been paying attention [to politics] back when I was in college, but I didn‘t. That‘s why I registered independent.”
“For the primaries,” Hernandez continued, “I registered Democrat so I could vote for Obama. I feel like he‘s running a cleaner campaign.”
When the questions were over, she half-joking made sure it wouldn’t be published in her local paper. “Don‘t let any Republicans come bomb me,” she laughed. Then sobered.
Retired teacher Marie Fetters said, “I think there are two Americas.” Fetters is a registered Democrat. “I‘m watching the middle class get squeezed out and the rich people getting richer…” Fetters cites a few reasons why she thinks Ohio is so divided politically.
“You have a lot of wealthy farmers… you can‘t tell they‘re rich, except that they have a lot of land, and a nice truck, they just live comfortably, you know? But they‘re very conservative. And… Look around. If you see our statistics, we have a high rate of people not graduating high school...”
Fetters is correct. According to the Ohio Department of Development, 21.3 percent of people in Fayette county never graduate high school or get the G.E.D equivalent, while less than 8 percent of the rest of the county gets even a bachelor’s degree. Nationally, the event dropout rate from 2004 is about 4.7 percent, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.
Other people in Washington Court House weren’t as forthcoming with their ideas on issues affecting them. “It‘s a personal thing. Not for the newspapers to discuss,” an antique shop owner replied, wishing to remain nameless.
A fireman simply shrugged. “I‘m not a political guy. They don‘t matter or affect me.”
Sources (at least some of them)
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/publications.html
http://www.fayette-co-oh.com/
http://www.electionsonthe