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Wilmington, Ohio, probably should hear <i>all</i> the ‘straight talk’

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A month ago, at a town-hall event in Ohio, John McCain heard first-hand about the hardship facing workers in Wilmington, Ohio, where a DHL plant was set to close.

Mary Houghtaling, who runs a hospice in Wilmington, Ohio, choked up as she told McCain of DHL’s plans to close its domestic air hub in her town, a move that could throw 8,600 people out of work. “This is a terrible blow,” McCain told her. “I don’t know if I can stop it. That’s some straight talk. Some more straight talk? I doubt it.”

It was not the kind of answer you often hear from a politician, and McCain is certainly hoping that kind of change will impress voters. When I talked to Houghtaling after the event, she was still wiping tears from her eyes. Houghtaling noted that she had supported McCain when he ran for President in 2000, and she intends to do it again. “Had he been elected,” she said, “I believe it would have been a different world.” But she didn’t fault McCain for his answer: “I think he was honest, because I don’t think there’s any hope.”

Fair enough. McCain no doubt impressed locals, at least when it comes to candor, by acknowledging that he might not be able to stop a plant-closing like this one.

But while McCain was patting himself on the back for offering the community some “straight talk,” he left out a rather important detail.

The foreign acquisition that prompted the plant closing in Wilmington was championed by none other than John McCain and his lobbyist-turned-campaign manager, Rick Davis.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s blog reported today:

Little known to [Wilmington] citizens, McCain and his campaign manager, Rick Davis, played roles in the fate of DHL Express and its Ohio air park as far back as 2003. Back then, however, their actions that helped DHL and its German owner, Deutsche Post World Net, acquire the Wilmington operations resulted in expansion, not retraction.

In a private meeting Thursday, Wilmington residents will ask McCain for help in stopping DHL’s proposal to quit using the airport as a hub, which could cost more than 8,000 jobs. DHL says that it wants to stay in the freight business but that it can stem financial losses if it can put its packages aboard the planes of a rival – United Parcel Service – before delivering them in DHL trucks. UPS flies out of Louisville, Ky., so the proposed change would render the Wilmington airport unnecessary.

None of that was anticipated in 2003, when McCain and Davis, who was a Washington lobbyist before managing the presidential campaign, first got involved. Several Wilmington civic leaders said that what happened in 2003 created an economic gain for their community, lasting several years.

But because that gain, and now the prospective loss, came from the decisions of a foreign-owned corporation, look for some Democrats and labor to seek to tie Wilmington’s current troubles to McCain.

Isaac Baker, an Obama spokesperson, said, “This episode represents everything that’s wrong with Washington, D.C.”

Joe Rugola, president of the Ohio AFL-CIO, added, “Those jobs are on the chopping block because Sen. McCain and his campaign were involved in a deal that resulted in control of those positions being shifted to a foreign corporation, and there’s no getting around that.”

The McCain campaign insists that it was impossible to anticipate this development when McCain his lobbyist aides helped make this deal happen. Perhaps, but I wonder whether local voters will agree.

Comments

  • Nicholas Kristof

    says:

    What is so refreshing about McCain is that, unlike other politicians, he wasn’t willing to make empty promises to this voter when he knew he was selling out her job to foreign companies.

  • ml johnston

    says:

    McCain and the Republican cronies are out for big $$$ and prefer to leave Americans out to dry!!! When will Americans understand J.McCain is only interested in winnning the presidency. He will never care about Americans. Only ultra rich Americans the rest be damned.!!!

  • DrToketee

    says:

    Nicholas Kristof, do you bother to read or listen any more? Do you pride yourself on your ignorance? For the past 26 years, McCain has actively supported giving tax breaks to American corporations that ship American jobs overseas and is deep in hock with coutless corporate lobbyists, all the while touting himself to the voters as a “Washington maverick” … and I don’t think a man who has called his wife dirty names, insulted her appearance, and publically offered her to a stripper’s contest in from of leering bikers is worthy of being described as “refreshing” …

  • donalda

    says:

    Cool. Dr – I’m pretty sure that Nicholas may have been being sardonic. weren’t you?
    After all,only telling the part of the truth that makes you look good counts as lie in most places.

  • jc

    says:

    Here we go again with the ‘selling of America’ just to make a buck.
    We have got to STOP letting foreign countries buy up everything from companies to buildings to apartments to ranches in Colorado.
    We need a flippin constitutional amendment to STOP the selling of America.

  • jc

    says:

    On August 6th, 2008 at 3:16 pm, Nicholas Kristof said:
    What is so refreshing about McCain is that, unlike other politicians, he wasn’t willing to make empty promises to this voter when he knew he was selling out her job to foreign companies.

    He should have had the balls to tell her the REAL truth.

  • The Truth

    says:

    The Truth is: American manufacturing made this country what it was since WWII. Foreign companies coming in and decimating our infrastructure has be prevalent since the early 1970’s. You as a consumer support this with every Hyundai automobile you buy, every item you buy from Chinamart, oops I mean Walmart etc. Wake up America without the factories and manufacturin capability we are DOOMED. Tell your Congressman and the next President that you want American made products. Hell we invented the TV and for over 7 years we haven’t made one!

  • JS

    says:

    Mr straight talk express – but he does not tell the rest of the story. Would like to see what Olberman could do with this, perhaps he could get the truth out there.

  • chrenson

    says:

    The Truth is also: American cars, with few exceptions, are demonstrably inferior to foreign cars. Also, in a time when gas prices began rising, Ford/GM/Chrysler decided that producing preposterous SUVs would be more profitable than building affordable, dependable, practical, economical, safe, environmentally friendly cars. Lucky for them a lot of hapless consumers bought them. Now, of course, you can’t give them away.

    America took itself out of manufacturing by ceasing to plan ahead, insisting on privatizing healthcare and pensions, and going for the quick score by offering inferior cars, TVs, phones, etc. with a big markup.

    America has no vision but the dollar sign, no plan but easy profits, and consequently, no future in manufacturing.

    Oh, but we’ll make you some bombs, by God.

  • Upper West

    says:

    Obama needs to change his schedule and immediately go out to Wilmington, OH and address the same group, and explain McCain and Davis’s role in the closings.

  • Rabi

    says:

    I’m going to come to McCain’s defense on this one. It’s ridiculous to imply that he is somehow responsible for this closing. Do you really think that everything would be dandy if DHL hadn’t been sold? I doubt it. Economic pressure forces closures like this, and the same pressures would exist regardless of owner.

  • Larry

    says:

    McCain is selling America to foreign interests and waving the American flag the whole way. We need to WAKE UP America! Stop the McCain Rhetoric Express and take OUR Country back! By the people for the people, NOT for WalMart. On the lighter side of all of this, if McCain keeps pushing his anti-American goals maybe we can send him back to Asia with all of our jobs. Kick him and his job out of OUR Country.

  • Larry

    says:

    Rabi, YES it would have different. The AMERICAN company that has been there for 30 years, Airborne Express would NOT go crawling to UPS.

  • ROTFLMLiberalAO

    says:

    Upper West said:

    Obama needs to change his schedule and immediately go out to Wilmington, OH and address the same group, and explain McCain and Davis’s role in the closings.

    As they say in basketball: MONEY.

  • libra

    says:

    We have got to STOP letting foreign countries buy up everything from companies to buildings to apartments to ranches in Colorado. — jc, @8

    Doesn’t matter; we’re so much in hock to China (mostly for Bush/Cheney/McCain little adventure in I-wreck), they’re gonna foreclose on us. We’ll be evicted for non payment. Once the Repo-Man cometh, it’ll be his headache that our “surety” wasn’t as secure as they’d thought. A sub-prime loan, you might say.

  • Kamshaftreesycup

    says:

    When will people realize that we live in a global economy. Do you think there are no American companies buying up property and running business’ outside the States ? Wake up please ! If Ford or GM went belly up, what will happen to the European workers who earn their daily bread working in Ford / GM / Vauxhall factories No different to the DHL / Deutsche Post scenario. My job is on the line in this whole mess, but I in no way blame McCain for what he did. We all moved to Wilmington with high hopes. Blame this whole mess on politics in general, the sub prime mortgage insanity (greedy lenders and greedy borrowers) – and the speculation on Wall Street on the price of oil. We’re all getting screwed – and for the most part we’re screwing ourselves.

  • Katharine

    says:

    McCain has driven his Straight Talk Express into the gutter. He has proven that he would rather win the presidency than be honest or responsible about anything, including his involvement in moving American jobs overseas. And that smile? Its a smirk, or a grimace, produced on cue- creeeepy.