Front Porch Campaign

 

Ohio.  

 

This hugely important swing state has picked every president since 1964!  And, wouldn’t you know, we live in Ohio.  What’s more, I’m even an Ohio State University fan.  Perfect, huh.

 

 

So here’s the strategy:  We’re going to win Ohio, and by extension -- the country! Stay with me on this. Two Ohio presidential candidates before me, William McKinley and Warren Harding, both won the Whitehouse using a “Front Porch Campaign.”  I mean, if it worked for them… Although McKinley and Harding gave speeches from, well, their front porches to large crowds, my front yard is too small for that.

 

So we’re turning all of Ohio into our (metaphoric) “front porch.  --Joe

 

 

…have to keep working, and stuff

Now while other modern-day presidential candidates will be regularly jetting about the entire country for extended periods, I’m a bit hamstrung.  That is I’m going to have to keep working, get my kid to soccer (basketball, baseball…) practice, and cut the grass.  (The neighbors can get a bit grouchy if it gets too high.) So that, basically, will leave some evenings and weekends to head out into the Buckeye state to campaign – as I’m expecting my supporters will be doing the same in their locals.

 

 

Ohio: Microcosm of the Nation at Large

Some may think this ‘Ohio thing’ is a bit too, oh, one-dimensional. It’s not.  Ohio (its tourism slogan is: “Ohio …the heart of it all!”) is a microcosm of the nation.  Almost everything is here that is, well, elsewhere in the nation, except, of course, like oceans.  And so I will go to these Ohio factories, farms, colleges, nature areas, small towns, big cities… and say to America:  “This is how I see this. Or this is what I’d do about that…”

 

 

So people in, say, rural Iowa would know my agricultural thoughts, people in New York City would know my stance on metropolitan issues, and on, and on… What’s more, if there isn’t national press, I have a blog.  And if the polls are showing, at some point, that our poll numbers are down in, like, Alabama, I’ll wear an Alabama (“GO TIDE!”) t-shirt I got at the thrift store in town for, maybe, a whole day. 

 

 

*I might also even mention that I’ve previously been to Alabama two or three times for extended periods, as I have been to every state in the continental U.S. over the past 25 years and 250,000 miles of campaigning and research.

 

Don’t laugh.  

This all could actually work.