US election 2012: the battleground of Dunkirk, Ohio

Daily Telegraph (UK) ^ | 9/16/2012 | Peter Foster

[1066AD]

On US Highway 68, down the road from an empty factory site and table-flat corn fields sits a windswept, one-street town called Dunkirk, Ohio. There is a church, a café, a bar, a fire station and a population of about 875 people who are feeling the cold winds of global economic change. It is Saturday morning and in Dunkirk's tiny, one-chair barbershop, a group of middle-aged men have gathered to chew the political fat. It's the kind of crowd that usually can't agree on the time of day, but Republicans, Democrats and undecided voters are unanimous: the US economy is in a hole, and no-one seems to know how to climb out of it.

[Red Badger]

I remember another DUNKIRK...............

[Vaduz]

Democrats and undecided voters are unanimous: the US economy is in a hole.

Color Obama gone.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Except the solutions the locals seem to be proposing are “higher minimum wage” and “more unions”.

[Vaduz]

If they go Obama they will only be subidizing unemployment.

[TonyInOhio]

Dunkirk is about 45 minutes from me, and I occasionally pass through there on business. That town has been in decline for 20 years or better, in large part because it is in the middle of nowhere. The locals who want to work go to where the work is, in Kenton, Findlay, Lima, and Ada.

You might note that the residents of Dunkirk doing well are those on public pensions. Do you suppose that they eve wonder where the money to pay those pensions comes from?