By Terry Smith

Editor's note: Terry Smith is the editor of the Athens News, an alternative newsweekly in Ohio.

SO WHAT HAPPENED in Ohio? Why did a 50-50 state that political experts predicted would tip John Kerry's way swing right and decide the election for George W. Bush?

In hindsight, from my vantage point as a newspaper editor in a small college town in Appalachian Ohio – a blue oasis in a sea of red – Bush's victory in this state isn't all that surprising.

Granted, I got seduced by the optimistic arguments in the days leading up to the election: The idea that a big voter turnout would benefit Kerry, because most of the new registrations would supposedly reflect get-out-the-vote drives among likely Democratic voters in urban areas. Or that the telephone polls showing a close race in Ohio failed to accurately reflect the many young people (a demographic statistically likelier to support Kerry) who use cell phones instead of land lines. Or the many friends, relatives, and coworkers – including my daughter, brother, and niece – were motivated to vote for the first time by animosity toward Bush.

All this and wishful thinking conspired to make me forget some hard realities about Ohio, as well as clues here in my own community.

First of all, anyone who thinks Ohio is a moderate state that suddenly turned conservative red on Nov. 2 hasn't been paying attention. Since big labor began losing its clout in the '80s, Ohio has gradually transformed into a reliably Republican state, with Republicans controlling our legislature, governor's office, congressional delegation, and Supreme Court.

The state's news media are mainly big corporations, with Sinclair Broadcasting Group and Clear Channel Communications owning a substantial segment of broadcasting, and chains owning the vast majority of newspapers, large and small. Most of the chains, especially those serving Ohio's many small communities, are rock-ribbed conservative, or worse, just bottom-line cheap.

So Ohio might not be Mississippi or Utah just yet, but it's a lot closer to those crimson states than it is to blue Vermont or Maryland, or even Michigan.

At the local and personal level in the days leading up to Nov. 2, clues abounded that it would be premature to assume a Kerry victory.

More and more pickup trucks and SUVs displayed "Sportsmen for Bush" bumper stickers, the National Rifle Association began running "Kerry wants your guns" ads in our daily newspaper, the local gun shop's outdoor sign proclaimed, "Vote your sport," and I overheard one of our display advertising reps declare, "I won't let Kerry take away my gun!" (The ad reps – all nice enough people – were mainly pro-Bush.)

Then campaign signs began appearing on church lawns, trumpeting "Protect Marriage! Yes on Issue 1." They referred to an amendment initiative that would ban same-sex marriage but also proscribe any legal recognition of unmarried couples, whether gay or straight. (Considered the most extreme such amendment in the nation, Issue 1 easily passed Nov. 2, along with same-sex marriage bans in 10 other states.)

Another hint at the grassroots support for this constitutional bigotry was its successful use by our state senator Joy Padgett (R-Coshocton) in defeating a well-funded election challenge by Terry Anderson, the celebrated Associated Press bureau chief who spent nearly seven years held captive by a terrorist cell in Beirut.

In her campaign ads and flyers, Padgett – whose campaign received special mention in the New York Times and Village Voice as being among the dirtiest in the country – repeatedly accused Anderson of supporting gay marriage, based on his opposition to Issue 1. One flyer read, "Terry Anderson is out of the mainstream. He supports gay marriage. Anderson's position would weaken the family and open the door to rights for same-sex couples."

This wasn't even Padgett's worst – that was a flyer that showed a photo of Anderson interviewing one of his Hezbollah captors years after his release. It was positioned next to an out-of-context quote from Anderson (which appeared in the Athens News in October 2001) about trying to understand the motivations of people in the Middle East, along with Padgett's charge that he's "soft on terrorism" and part of the "blame America first" crowd.

Padgett, whose entire campaign focused on depicting Anderson as an out-of-touch liberal from New York ("where Hillary lives"), knew that playing the gay card would resonate with the heartland voters of the 20th Senate District. She was right – she won handily with this crowd, and so did Issue 1.

The presumption that new voter registrations mainly would benefit Democrats was fundamentally flawed. It ignored the power of guns and gays to propel otherwise apolitical people into the voting booth. There was a huge turnout among white evangelicals and self-identified born-again voters, 76 percent of whom voted for Bush.

Many people who live in the heartland – whether in Appalachian Ohio, the plains of Kansas, or the foothills of the Ozarks – don't follow the intricacies of politics, economics, and foreign policy. They don't have the time or inclination to seek out news media that makes them question their assumptions. They're not dumb or bad; they just have other things to do.

For them, it's enough to know that an amendment will protect traditional marriage and that Kerry will take their guns away. Having between 60,000 and 80,000 Bush volunteers in Ohio to encourage them to protect their rights and morals doesn't hurt either.

So the message from Ohio is that support for guns and homophobia in this country are ripe for political exploitation. But those fears can be confronted. At our paper, we repeatedly editorialized against the same-sex marriage ban. The day after the election, we learned that Athens was the only county out of 88 in Ohio that voted against the amendment.

Granted, none of our other endorsements had any effect, but we'll take whatever consolation we can in this post-Nov. 2 world.