Welcome to the Steel Valley

April 12, 2008

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Senator Barack Obama

When I first heard about this statement, I knew Senator Obama was going to get a lot of abuse for it. But he's not wrong. The truth isn't elitist. It's just true. Instead of talking about Pennsylvania, he could be talking about my home in Northeast Ohio.

The steel mills closed here, for the most part, in the '70's. They still call it the "Steel Valley", even without steel mills for all these years. I was a child when those mills closed. Since then, I have lived here through the moving of Packard Electric (now Delphi) jobs to Mexico. Countless industrial jobs have gone from here, from the GM plant, to the mills, up to the closing of the aluminum plant where my husband worked, which closed last month. Thousands of people have lost their jobs.

I have also lived through politicians of many campaigns, Democrat and Republican alike. They come through here every four years like locusts. And every one, from Clinton to Bush, to Clinton to Bush to Obama to McCain, talk about "moving the Valley forward" again. They make promises of jobs, and money, and protection for the jobs that are left. And then they leave, taking their promises with them. Is it any wonder folks are bitter? If we turn to God, can it be that we feel failed by Man? If folks are afraid of immigrants, maybe it's because it's harder to remember your family were once immigrants too, when your job has just gone overseas.

But I make no excuses for those bitter souls left here. We spend our time talking about and living in the past. Right up to the nickname, "Steel Valley". There hasn't been much steel in this valley for a long time. While we cannot forget the things that made this place strong, we must move past them. Those jobs aren't coming back. Ever. As long as cheap labor exists elsewhere, and the almighty dollar is more important to executives and politicians than American workers, industry will continue to be sent to the lowest bidder. If we are so concerned about "homeland security", why aren't we protecting one of our greatest assets? Our ability to stand on our own.

But economics and industry aren't my interest here. Senator Obama's comments are. I am the proud daughter of a man who spent his life working for Packard Electric, only to be cast off as too expensive. In the '80's, my dad told me not to depend on the mills. He said he was a dinosaur, and that the jobs wouldn't last. He was right. I was born and raised blue collar Democrat. I got to go to college to make a better life. And I am still here in the Steel Valley. People here still talk about the mill closings. And they are bitter. Sometimes we don't want to see ourselves for who we have become, spoken in the bluntest of terms. But we still are. good night and good luck...stimp