Ohio decided the last presidential election and at the very least it's delayed a decision on the Democratic nominee this year. The economy and NAFTA were apparently the big issues for primary voters in this slowly dying manufacturing state, who get hammered by realities of global market competition.
The candidates can pander all they want about helping people find new jobs in Ohio and other places in the old industrial rustland. But it ain't going to happen. Industry doesn't want to move to these cold places which are pockmarked by brownfields left from relic factories and plants. Most of all they want to avoid union rights states. So if they stay in the higher cost U.S. at all they'll locate facilities in places like Mobile, Alabama. That's where Northrop Grumman will be building new super fuel tankers for the military -- right smack dab in the middle of a right to work state which happens to have a much more temperate climate than Youngstown. The Pentagon just made that decision last week.
As for dissing NAFTA, the candidates are all hot air. I was at a private Obama fundraiser two weeks ago where Austan Goolsbee, an Obama economic advisor, told us the same thing he told the Canadian diplomat in Chicago, which caused a big flap over the weekend. Goolsbee said that Obama would seek minor amendments to NAFTA, trying to put American workers on a more level playing field regarding safety and environmental issues. Obama, he said, may shade some statements in certain states for political advantage, but essentially he is a free trader. Hillary doesn't want to abrogate NAFTA either and neither does McCain.
Not that trashing the treaty would help Ohio. That's one state that will continue to lose electoral votes as its population steadily ages and ebbs. And then it won't matter so much how people there vote in national elections. It's too bad, but that's what's happening.
By the way, anybody investing in the Buckeye state?
© Miller Ryan LLC 2008
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Jonathan D. Miller
A marketing communication strategist who turned to real estate analysis, Jonathan D. Miller is a foremost interpreter of 21st citistate futures – cities and suburbs alike – seen through the lens of lifestyles and market realities. For more than 20 years (1992-2013), Miller authored Emerging Trends in Real Estate, the leading commercial real estate industry outlook report, published annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute (ULI). He has lectures frequently on trends in real estate, including the future of America's major 24-hour urban centers and sprawling suburbs. He also has been author of ULI’s annual forecasts on infrastructure and its What’s Next? series of forecasts. On a weekly basis, he writes the Trendczar blog for GlobeStreet.com, the real estate news website. Outside his published forecasting work, Miller is a prominent communications/institutional investor-marketing strategist and partner in Miller Ryan LLC, helping corporate clients develop and execute branding and communications programs. He led the re-branding of GMAC Commercial Mortgage to Capmark Financial Group Inc. and he was part of the management team that helped build Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, Inc. (subsequently Lend Lease Real Estate Investments, Inc.) into the leading real estate advisor to pension funds and other real institutional investors. He joined the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S. in 1981, moving to Equitable Real Estate in 1984 as head of Corporate/Marketing Communications. In the 1980's he managed relations for several of the country's most prominent real estate developments including New York's Trump Tower and the Equitable Center. Earlier in his career, Miller was a reporter for Gannett Newspapers. He is a member of the Citistates Group and a board member of NYC Outward Bound Schools and the Center for Employment Opportunities.
