Being the contrarian that I am to the latest DK conventional wisdom, I decided to read the Politics section of The New York Times.
I read Binyamin Appelbaum’s Reliably Red Ohio County Finds Both Trump and Clinton Hard to Stomach (FTR, I have always loved this type of “on the road” political coverage by The New York Times) and I am drawn to the story of one Shalyn Shelton:
Shalyn Shelton, 26, has completed one and a half years of courses toward a nursing degree, but she already owes $22,000 in student debt and she cannot afford to continue. She also cannot afford to live in Delaware, where she grew up, so she recently moved with her partner to Marion, 20 miles north.
And on a recent afternoon she sat outside the International Paper factory where she had worked for the last two years, because she and her co-workers have been on strike since May.
The factory, which cranks out diaper boxes, egg crates and other corrugated containers, offers some of the best jobs still available in Delaware for people without college degrees. Ms. Shelton makes about $21 an hour stacking boxes. And business is booming.
But International Paper wants the workers to accept more mandatory overtime rather than hire more workers. So Ms. Shelton sat among her fellow workers, holding a cardboard sign that read, “84 Hours a Week = No Family! No Church!” In her arms she cradled her daughter, nearly 3 months old.
Mrs. Clinton has framed her presidential campaign as an effort to help people like Ms. Shelton. She has proposed making college free for people under a certain income, creating more affordable housing, strengthening collective bargaining, and improving benefits for working parents. She has won the endorsement of Ms. Shelton’s union, the Teamsters.
But Mrs. Clinton has not won the support of Ms. Shelton, who has not registered to vote and does not plan to do so. “They don’t care about us,” Ms. Shelton said of Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton.
A few minutes later, she opened the door at least a crack: “I’ll tell you what — if she shows up here, she would have my vote.”
Given all of the information in the article (including the fact that Woodrow Wilson was the last Democrat to win the most votes in a presidential election in Delaware County, Ohio) if you were Hillary Clinton and/or the Clinton campaign, what would you do?
(Ohio’s voter registration deadline is October 11th.)