Last Saturday, canvassing the white middle-class suburb of Brooklyn, where Democratic seniors who once voted for FDR live next to union families, state representative Dale Miller was greeted warmly. On election day, sound trucks will move through town playing spiels by Kucinich in English, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, or Arabic, depending on the neighborhood. Everyone knows the former mayor, who is simply called Dennis. In Parma, a suburb that was one of the original homes of the Reagan Democrats, Kucinich has mounted a feverish drive. But although Kucinich's operation reaches into African American neighborhoods, apathy seems to hang over black strongholds like Hough and East Cleveland.
Local pols are increasingly uneasy.
Gore has been in Cleveland only three times this campaign. In 1992, Clinton was here seven times. Instead of visits by either Clinton or Gore, Nashville plugs in automated Clinton phone calls or computer-driven calls from Ed Asner. Or the administration sends out an uninspiring surrogate. Last week, it was HHS secretary Donna Shalala.