Trying to educate a tradesman into the realization that his employment is directly tied to capitol investment in property is a chore sometimes....but most guys get it after a while....not the rabid ones though...
This IS still Ohio...
Most union guys here are ....
Pro-gun
pro-life
Anti-terrorist
Anti-appeasment
Proud Americans
But many of them are also busy and only get news from TV or the Union...thus many suffer from BDS (bush derangement syndrome)...
I've even seen the conspiracy movie “loose change” floated around the hall ( I raised holy hell)...
Our union monthly regularly posts pics of serving union members and are VERY pro troop...
These are the very people Alinsky (oh-bama mentor) talks about...the working class....
The only way for the left to gain control is to artificially created the conditions of hopelessness and disaffection...
The wild card here is patriotism, real emancipation or working women/mothers and an undercurrent of racism for a black canidate...
IIRC the Bush cross over votes for union members was 40%?
I suspect...what ever it was....it's going to be higher in this election...
Just my amateur opinion...
As a native of Ohio, I agree 100%.
I’m in Maryland now, but am from Akron originally. I used to frequent an all-night cafe in Akron and many of the guys that came in there were exactly the kind of guys that you describe - union workers, 40-60 years old, white, socially moderate to conservative.
They might not like Republicans, but let me tell you something. I heard those guys talk late at night after their second-shift let out. Some of them are, admittedly, either racist or at least very suspect of a minority in power. There’s two things that scare them more than Bush, or Republicans—blacks, and Muslims. Even those that don’t have the racial component still don’t like a man who is anti-troop, anti-patriot, etc.
THat’s why Obama will not do as well in OH, MI, WI or PA as people think.