The People's House

by David Pepper

  “Will do. At this point, I can’t explain it. If you come up with something, be sure to let me know. The whole night was nuts.”

  “It sure was. And will do.”

  We hung up. Not at all helpful.

  My calls to county party chairs, political watchers, and a professor at Ohio University proved equally useless. There was surprise that such a weak challenger won, even from Republican observers. No outside ads on television or radio. And Kelly didn’t lose on some controversial issue that snowballed into an avalanche.

  Damn.

  The analysis was going nowhere. No short cut. Time to dig up the data for those fancy graphics.

  * * *

  Outside of long-term demographic shifts or a truly explosive campaign cycle, communities vote in remarkably consistent patterns.

  In Ohio’s Sixth District, Athens County votes for the Democrat. Home to Ohio University and its liberal staff and student body, 65 percent or more of Athens County will vote for the Democratic candidate. Take it to the bank.

  And the populated counties of the Mahoning Valley, the northern end of the district, are where a Democrat like Kelly runs up big margins to secure victory in the Sixth. A melting pot of urban, ethnic and labor votes—more Steeler fans than Browns fans—the Democratic candidate will win the Valley. The question is, by how much?

  Further south, tiny Monroe County, surrounded by Republican counties, casts its votes for the Democrat. Not by a huge margin, but almost like clockwork.

  The Republican inevitably and decisively wins Washington County, home of Marietta. And a number of other smaller counties, from Carroll County up north down to Lawrence County at Ohio’s southern tip, are also always red.

  This leaves the larger river counties of Belmont and Jefferson as the toss-ups. Whoever wins those battleground counties likely wins the race.

  I set out to confirm this pattern, and that’s when I found my story. In the prior day’s election, the math of the Sixth District changed.

  Kelly took the Mahoning Valley by the usual margins.

  The Republican-leaning counties went Gibbs’ way, as expected. Washington County delivered a decisive 63 percent haul, a noticeable jump versus two years ago. Carroll and Noble counties delivered nice margins as well. The swing counties were split as usual, but Jefferson went Gibbs’ way by just a few hundred votes—a big win for the newcomer. Kelly took Athens County, but by 61 percent instead of the usual 65 percent or more.

  But what stuck out most?

  Kelly did not carry Monroe County.

  * * *

  A blue speck in a sea of red, the small, poor county along the Ohio named after James Monroe feels Republican but is reliably Democratic. The 15,000 citizens of Monroe County have voted that way for years. Not by the decisive margins of Athens County, and with President Obama as the one exception, Democrats can count on Monroe County.

  The trend has long puzzled outside observers. On the surface, the communities and voters in Monroe have much in common with their more conservative neighbors. Primarily white. Rural. Struggling economically as coal mining fizzled out and after major manufacturing closed down. Culturally conservative.

  But come election time, they vote for Democrats, as their parents did. And their parents before that.

  When Reagan swept the country and the state, Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale won Monroe County. Dukakis beat Bush there 56 to 44 percent. John Kerry won by double digits.

  All the county officials but one were Democrats, and Kelly always won there.

  Except yesterday.

  Kelly lost Monroe County. Not by a lot, but by an erosion in votes in every ward. A county he’d won by 1,100 votes two years earlier, he lost by 600 votes.

  That 1,700 vote swing in Monroe combined with a loss of 1,800 net votes in Athens County and 2,200 net votes that Gibbs picked up in Washington County. The slight shifts in a few other counties—Jefferson, Noble and Carroll in particular—netted Gibbs another 2,000 votes. In a swing district like the Sixth, a switch of almost 8,000 votes is all that it takes. Which is how Kelly’s close win from two years ago now became a narrow loss.

  With that, my story was good to go: “Monroe County Flips to GOP, Anchoring Gibbs Upset.” The color-coded maps looked great. My editors were thrilled.

  Chapter 4

  WASHINGTON, DC: 86 days after the election

  “The man sure looks the part,” Stanton whispered to the gray-haired committee chair as the two looked down at the witness table. It was not a compliment.

  After weeks of buildup, show time had arrived. The chairman banged the gavel against the wood desk three times, calling the meeting to order. Just as when they dined over steak a month before, Stanton sat directly to his right.

  Stanton tapped his fingertips on the desk, frustrated that he wasn’t chairing the hearing himself. As successful as the prior month had been, the pipeline plan would propel him forward more than any other issue. If he couldn’t run the meeting directly, Stanton had at least steered it to a committee—and a chairman—he controlled. And now he took the rare step of actually attending a hearing as majority leader.

  Four prominent energy executives sat at the long table before them. But one, Jim Mason, was the reason they were all there. And that’s who Stanton focused on.

  Mason ran Marcellus Enterprises, a company rocketing to the top of the industry. Marcellus made an early, quiet bet that it could successfully drill for natural gas under eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, a part of the country long given up for dead. And the bet had paid off. By the time the rest of the industry woke up to the opportunity, the unknown Marcellus controlled more than 65 percent of the region’s drillable land.

  Stanton had put Mason in the center seat in today’s hearing. He’d earned it, but did he have to flaunt it? Today’s hearing was supposed to be all Rust Belt, no Wall Street. But Mason’s dark suit and slicked back gray hair nailed the caricature of the manicured million-dollar CEO. He sat stiffly, his posture erect, every bend in his body at a right angle. After spending years on the losing side of a fierce political battle, he now carried a conquering general’s swagger.

  “Honorable members of Congress, the natural gas opportunity in the Midwest will trigger energy independence, lower energy prices, and an economic boom in our entire nation. It’s long past time that this body seize this opportunity.”

  Stanton cringed at the tone of that last line. Sure, the Democratic House had blocked all attempts to execute the president’s Energy 2020 strategy. But they had won. The battle was over. No reason to rub it in. Bad optics, bad politics.

  Mason continued, “With the proposed pipelines, the economics work. The key to it all is the reliable and timely flow of huge amounts of natural gas to large population centers, other transportation nodes, and ultimately, our coastal ports.

  “Without the pipelines, the economics fail. The return on investment is simply not there after the costs, delays and inefficiencies resulting from overcrowded roads and trucks.”

  As they always do, the “questions” from committee members morphed into lengthy statements with only a single query at the end. Supportive Republicans tossed softballs that Mason and the others promptly hit out of the park.

  “How many jobs will be created by this work?”

  “Thousands directly in the oil and gas industry, and thousands more downstream.”

  “How much local revenue will this growth create?”

  “Billions.”

  “What will this do to our overall energy picture?”

  “It will make us less reliant on foreign powers.”

  In most of their meetings together, the politicians beg for the help from the businessmen. This hearing presented a simple way to return the corporate generosity. Stanton had instructed his colleagues not to be too obvious about it, but they were failing.

&nb
sp; Visibly rolling their eyes, skeptical Democrats responded as expected. Justifying their years of obstruction, they lamented the risks of the gas drilling operations, along with the risks of three proposed pipelines spanning thousands of miles across twelve states. Earthquakes. Spills and leaks. Poisoned water.

  This was the hearing’s pivotal moment. Don’t take the bait, Stanton’s chief of staff had instructed the Marcellus team. Kill the hostile questions with verbosity. Politely. Mason dutifully got it done, droning on after each adverse query. All smiles. Respectful. No drama at all.

  In the end, what mattered were the votes, not the speeches from the minority. And the committee passed the pipeline plan, formally known as Energy 2020, with little fanfare.

  When the chairman gaveled the meeting to a close, the CEOs and lobbyists huddled behind the witness table, happy with the outcome, yet disciplined enough to maintain austere game faces. The congressmen who had voted their way sought them out with far less discipline, overtly congratulating their past and potential donors for the big win.

  Stanton exited through a side door. He didn’t need to suck up to anyone, so he walked toward the Rotunda where the press awaited him. That was the audience he cared about.

  His balding, bespectacled chief of staff followed a foot behind.

  “It was painful at times, but mission accomplished. Good coaching, Don.”

  Chapter 5

  MONROE COUNTY, OHIO: 2 days after the election

  “Something ain’t right. Monroe County would never have voted for Gibbs. And it didn’t election night.”

  Thursday, two days after the election, the deep, gravelly voice of Ernie Rogers bellowed through my phone.

  “It didn’t?”

  “No, it didn’t!”

  He didn’t seem to appreciate the smart-ass tone of my question.

  If anyone else called with that opening line, I would have found a quick exit. I had already put the Kelly loss behind me and was back to daydreaming about retirement. The last thing I needed was to waste time on political conspiracy theories.

  But I stayed on the line out of respect for Rogers, the long-time Democratic Party chair of Monroe County. A Korean war veteran, lifelong bricklayer, and great-grandfather, Rogers had worked his way up through the ranks of the Eastern Ohio Bricklayers Union to lead the local, and shortly thereafter took over the Monroe County Democratic Party. He had led it ever since, even after giving up his union post. Rogers provided the face of Monroe County every even year when candidates, media, and other politicos swept through. Over the years, he had met Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and a host of other candidates as they embarked on Ohio River campaign tours.

  In short, Rogers was no flake. If his body was failing him as he aged, his mind remained as sharp as ever.

  “You know how I keep tabs on the voters down here?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, they didn’t vote for that kid over Kelly. I know that for a fact.”

  Rogers was playing his best hand. He was legendary for knowing every inch of his county, and virtually every voter of the county’s 15,000. He knew those who voted for the Democrat every time and those who voted for the Republican every time. He kept track of who showed up in presidential years, and who showed up every year. And he knew whose votes were truly up for grabs, and why.

  In fact, Rogers kept constant tabs on a handful of voters who he felt perfectly represented the swing voters of Monroe County. He worked hard to know where they stood each and every election. He talked to them and about them all the time.

  He called them his Monroe Weather Vane.

  Old Erma Smith, the most senior member, voted for almost every Democrat on the ballot. But if one of them looked too eager to grab her Winchester, she would vote for the Republican. When she planted a McCain sign in her yard, Rogers correctly predicted Obama would lose the county, the only Democratic presidential candidate to do so in decades.

  William Hawsey generally voted Republican, but if a candidate came across as too anti-union and distant from the working man, Hawsey would swing the other way. That’s why he voted for Bill Clinton over the older Bush.

  George and Jenna Smoot were true independents. They read up on each candidate, carefully considered all their qualities, charted the relative pros and cons, and, over many meals, deliberated about the decision. Because they did not want to neutralize one another, they always voted for the same person.

  If a Democratic candidate risked losing Monroe County, the chairman knew. He sensed it from conversations with Mrs. Smith, Mr. Hawsey, Mr. and Mrs. Smoot, and a handful of others like them. I had seen it play out many times—his Weather Vane was never wrong.

  “Trust me. Get down here and I’ll show you.”

  * * *

  The three-hour drive south offered an up-close tour of the buzzing eastern Ohio economy—of the new Ohio encroaching on the old. Brigades of trucks weaved amid Amish horse and buggies. New motels, restaurants and houses interrupted miles of aging silos and old farmhouses. And tall, steel drilling wells towered over rolling hills and fields.

  Those wells were the source of all the other new activity.

  As a journalist, I try to stay neutral on most things political, but the natural gas boom was great news. All the way down the river, these counties had struggled for generations. With coal operations fading and large-scale manufacturing disappearing, the heart of their economies stopped beating long ago.

  Now, natural gas was changing it all. Farmers, firefighters, county commissioners and others were getting rich overnight because of gas found deep beneath their land, and new technology that allowed it to be drilled. Hundreds of new millionaires popped up in counties along the river. Young people and older ones, forced to retire early, created enterprises to service the needs of their prized new industry, and all the new workers moving to the region.

  Good for them. Like Youngstown, these communities, these people, deserved it all.

  And with the president finally getting her way, the recent election only meant more good news to come.

  * * *

  According to the sign on the door at Traditions Lounge, it didn’t open until 10:00 on Saturday mornings. But I walked in anyway. If Rogers was inside, as he had assured me he would be, it was open.

  “Welcome back to Woodsfield, Jack!”

  Standing eight feet from the door, the chairman was not alone. His entire Weather Vane had joined us. They stood around a table behind Rogers, looking at this out-of-town reporter like I was an alien.

  A tall woman, cane gripped firmly in her right hand, had her gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. At least eighty, she looked like a tough old lady. A couple in their seventies, both barely topping five feet, wore what appeared to be identical pairs of glasses; the husband bald as a bowling ball, and his wife sporting short, jet-black hair. A man weighing at least 300 pounds donned a UAW cap and a biker jacket. An elegant woman looked overdressed in her long skirt, white blouse and colorful, wide-brimmed hat. Several others joined them, each as authentic as the next.

  I broke the silence.

  “I see you brought some friends, Mr. Chairman.”

  “Thanks for coming down,” Rogers said, looking at me but gesturing toward his group. “When it comes to voting, these folks almost perfectly represent the good people of Monroe County.”

  He turned to the small gathering.

  “Here’s your chance, folks. Tell him your stories.”

  The heavyset man spoke first.

  “I barely heard of that Gibbs kid, and Kelly’s been here so many times. He knows us. Easiest vote I ever cast.”

  The female half of the couple chimed in. “The congressman and his wife are always so nice. We felt like he was always fighting for what we care about.”

  Her husband nodded in agreement.

  The ov
erdressed woman echoed their sentiments, saying she usually voted Republican. “He was a Democrat, but he didn’t follow the party line. I respected that. We need more politicians like him. And I know a lot of my neighbors, Republican neighbors, felt the same way.”

  I took notes after every comment, and the rest of the group shared similar sentiments.

  Rogers chimed in.

  “Jack, these are the folks I talk to before every election. They really do represent our people. If they’re with someone, I guarantee you, that person will win Monroe County every time. It’s that simple.”

  They politely answered my follow-up questions, nodding as one after another spoke. This was a credible group, with no ax to grind. Heck, they weren’t political at all, just thoughtful citizens. That’s why they were part of the Weather Vane to begin with.

  After two hours, we all shook hands. Each smiled ear-to-ear as if they had handed Watergate to Bob Woodward. The last handshake was the most painful one, as Rogers said goodbye. He followed it with an equally powerful bear hug.

  “Thanks for doing this, Jack. Keep me posted.”

  Driving home after the meeting, I tried to dismiss Rogers’ theory as nonsense. It would sure make life easier if these folks were off base. A lot less work, for one thing.

  But they were sincere, and their narratives added up.

  What if they were right? What if the official vote count in Monroe County did not reflect the actual votes of the people of Monroe County? How would that have happened? An egregious mistake made by a small county Board of Elections? A flaw in the technology? A scam?

  To assure myself that Lee Kelly’s loss was a fluke, and not something worse, I did something I hadn’t in a long time.

  I dug deeper.

  * * *

  “I’m Jack Sharpe, from the Youngstown Vindicator. I would love to talk to the person who oversaw last year’s congressional election.”

  It’s rare that a woman matches my height. But I didn’t have an inch on Betty Struthers. Rail thin, her smile revealed about fifty years of hard-core smoking. She proudly flashed both rows of teeth as she welcomed me into a small storefront that looked more like a barbershop than the Monroe County Board of Elections. It was Monday morning.