Way To Go, Ohio, Indeed!

Only a few years ago was Ohio viewed as a starkly declining state, reliant on a fading manufacturing sector, and older and undereducated compared to the rest of the U.S. Now, Ohio's unemployment rate has been lower than the national rate for quite some time, the automobile industry no longer looks so anachronistic, its cities are relatively popular places to be for Midwestern urban centers, and its capital and my wife's hometown, Columbus, is neatly aligned on the higher-education-health-care-government-arts axis that has proved quite successful for cities in the early 21st century. It all culminated last month with a lengthy cover story in the Times magazine, where the big question was who deserves the praise -- President Obama, the relatively new governor, Republican John Kasich, or its big cities' mayors, such as Michael Coleman? I'm glad that so many people have joined me on the bandwagon.

Ever since I was in college, I found Ohio to be a great slice of America. It's not quite as representative of where the country is heading, as Virginia and Colorado are, but an amalgamation of lots of different people and places that nearly captures it all. There are traditional industries, like cars and steel and coal, that evoke nostalgia for mid-20th century American commerce, and the contemporary ones mentioned above. There are long stretches of rural farmland and three large cities. Among its Congressional representatives are John Boehner, the House speaker and quintessential Country Club Republican, and Dennis Kucinich, probably the most liberal one of all 435 (though he's leaving soon). Columbus is a surprisingly liberal place, where the gay pride parade is one of the country's biggest and longest-standing, and Ohio's voters rejected by referendum a recent attempt to eliminate public employees' bargaining rights, after Gov. Kasich tried to emulate his Wisconsin counterpart.

That Ohio has ended up as a crucial swing state for four consecutive elections (and for Republican candidates, 100 years) is fascinating. How can an entire state end up so evenly divided so often? The more common contemporary trend is that like-minded people cluster together, skewing their politics to one side. Ohioans must have a particularly strong genetic disposition to moderation, or something like that. Ohio also isn't like that other famous swing state, Florida, where the southern edge of Miami is so wildly different from the northern half. Instead, everything is stitched together in a patchwork way. And since it's on the western edge of Eastern Standard Time, the sun sets nearly an hour later than it does in Boston! The days last until about 9:30 during the summer's peak. What more do you need?

Above is a photo of the Columbus skyline, taken from North Bank Park.

Update: There's a good, tough response in the comments (from Jake, perhaps?). I still say there's something more interesting happening in Ohio than the other states with which it's typically grouped -- Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Kentucky.