Youngstown

October 24, 2008

Alex Webb and Deja Vu all over again.

Little did I realize when I walked into Youngstown’s Club Deja Vu to watch the Presidential debate that I’d return during the daylight hours just a few mornings later. For it turns out that this funky red-walled night club, just across Market Street from the Board of Elections, is not just a local watering hole, but also serves as a kind of community political center.

The Deja Vu was the destination of a Saturday morning caravan of painted cars – called “Obamamobiles” – that began at the democratic campaign office in Boardman, Ohio, just south of Youngstown. At 11:30 in the morning, after the arrival of the caravan, Deja Vu’s staff fired up the barbeque on the back patio and soon began serving hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and cornbread. The dancing inside was briefly interrupted by some uncertainty as to whether it was the “Obama shuffle” or the “Obama hustle” that was being performed. (I have to admit, I never figured out which was which.)

The Obamamobile caravan, however, wasn’t the only political activity around. Not far away, on a street corner in Boardman, some supporters of David Aey (a local Democratic candidate for sheriff) gathered, one of of them dressed as a gigantic pencil, since Aey was running a write-in campaign. Elsewhere families competed in a pumpkin carving contest in Boardman Park, and in nearby Austintown, a fall festival, which included a classic car show, took over the parking lot outside a local community church.

Under the slanting rays of a waning Ohio sun, the hubbub of the election seemed far away.