How 1,300 jobs could cost Bush his own

How 1,300 jobs could cost Bush his own
In Midwest manufacturing towns, electoral math is Stark
By Howard Fineman
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5006885/

WASHINGTON - I just got back from Ohio (a phrase I’m uttering often these days) and the most significant news in the Mother of All Battleground States is not the prison-abuse scandal or the 9/11 Commission but ball-bearings — specifically the decision (or threat) by a famous old steel company, Timken, to close its nearly century-old manufacturing plants in its hometown of Canton. It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that if the company follows through on the plan — which will cut 1,300 high-paying jobs and produce a nasty spin-off effect — it could cost George Bush the presidency.

Here’s why: As Timken goes, so goes Canton (and nearby Massillon). As they go, so goes surrounding Stark County, the bellwether county in the bellwether state. As Stark County goes (history tells us), so goes Ohio and its 20 electoral votes. Stark’s vote in presidential elections has always almost exactly mirrored the statewide totals. And no Republican has won the White House without Ohio.

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Bushes, father and son, have come calling. The current President Bush was at Timken last year, touting his own tax cuts and promising to take special steps to aid the ailing manufacturing sector in the Midwest and elsewhere.

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looks like exporting jobs has really helped them...afterall losing american jobs is good for us....errrrr....right...

He had the head of Timken's Steelworkers on the phone, and he played a clip from Bush's speech last year where he talks about the factory being there since 1899, helping families put food on the table for their kids. The head of the union talked about how badly the whole community would be hit by the closing, not just workers at the factory (whose operations would be moved to nonunion Timken plants - the Canton plant being the only union shop in the company), citing layoffs at other companies in the area, like Rubbermaid. And he also talked about Stark being a bellwether county.

Franken also mentioned the tens of thousands of dollars Timken has donated to Bush and the RNC.

It will be way too cool to have a DUer in the US Congress.

You have the issue, now write some letters to the newspaper!

If Timken is so closely tied to republicans, this could be something to allow the idiot in chief to ride to the rescue.