Saturday night I drove to Washington to see Rep. Tim Ryan from Northeast Ohio who is running for President. We met at the Cafe Dodici shop next to the restaurant. Apparently the organizers were not expecting a large crowd. I arrived about five to ten minutes before Ryan was scheduled to be there and was invited to have a seat at a table with a few chairs scattered around.
Altogether there were twelve people present. Two people volunteering or working for Ryan, a reporter from KCII and a reporter from the "The News" formerly known as the Kalona News. They purchased the Wellman Advance, the Riverside Current and the Lone Tree Reporter to create their own local newspaper conglomerate. Many people in Wellman still refuse to subscribe.
Ryan showed up about five minutes later than scheduled. After a quick bathroom break he introduced himself to all of us and asked our names and anything else we wanted to share. He shared a bit about his family and his home district based in Youngstown, OH. The focus was primarily on the economy and the effect Trump's policies have had on places like Youngstown. The loss of manufacturing jobs and industrial base continue to have a negative impact on his constituency, many of who voted for Trump, but also for Ryan. And this gets to the reason why Ryan is running. He repeated several times that in a district that voted for Trump, he won re-election with 64-65% of the vote. Thus he can appeal to those who perhaps voted for Obama, at least the first time, but then voted for Trump.
While this may be a valid observation it seems to me that Obama won primarily by expanding the voter base. He got a lot of people to participate in the process and to vote who hadn't done so before. In Wellman, the first caucus for Obama was dominated by young people and others who had never caucused before.
Ryan went around the table giving each of us a chance to ask a question or to talk a bit about our concerns. He seemed a bit tired, maybe just subdued, but he seemed to listen and respond like it was the first time he had heard the concern. Issues raised included, beating Trump, the environment, women's rights and gender equality, large hog confinement buildings and their impact on the local areas, dealing with the urban - rural divide, mental health issues and so forth. The one point where he seemed energized was when the issue of student anxiety and stress came up after he remembered I said I was a teacher. He shared about being invited to speak to two wealthy school districts near D.C. where he was asked to speak about mindfulness and well-being. He said he's written a book about the subject so I should look it up. Anyway, he asked what their concerns were and the districts shared about the number of suicides and other mental health issues they were facing, largely because of the stress high students face.
Ryan seems like a nice, capable person. He's got a long ways to go to become a viable candidate, though as he said, there is still a lot of time.
