McCain's Business Ties In Ohio: A Tale Of Globalization, Greed, And Dirty Politics

[babylonsister]

Buckeye Boondoggle by Jason Zengerle
The truth about John McCain and those DHL workers.
Post Date Wednesday, October 08, 2008


In the weeks before his address to the Democratic convention, pundits and politicos alike were of the seemingly unanimous opinion that Barack Obama was being too timid toward John McCain. Clearly, none of these critics had been to Ohio. Since mid-August, the Obama campaign has been on the air in the Buckeye State with radio and TV attack ads that are much harsher than any of the harsh words Obama had for McCain in his convention speech. "In Washington, John McCain helped pave the way for foreign-owned DHL to take over an American shipping company," an announcer says in the television spot. "McCain's campaign manager was lead lobbyist for the deal. Now, thousands of Ohio jobs at risk." Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO has been complementing the Obama ads with a mailing to Ohio voters alleging that "McCain helped cut a deal that sent over 8,000 Ohio jobs to a foreign-owned company."

The attacks refer to an air park in the southwestern Ohio town of Wilmington, which the German-owned delivery company DHL acquired as part of its purchase of Airborne Express in 2003. After using Wilmington as its North American air-freight hub for the past five years, DHL announced on May 28 that it was outsourcing its North American air cargo operations to UPS, which operates a hub in Louisville, Kentucky--resulting in the likely loss of thousands of jobs in Wilmington. As for McCain's connection, he played a role in getting DHL's purchase of Airborne through Congress, and his campaign manager, Rick Davis, was hired by DHL to lobby on behalf of the deal. All of which has created a perfect storm of political trouble for McCain in a battleground state that could very well determine the next president. It's little wonder, then, that, when Davis's role in the DHL deal was revealed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer in early August, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe deemed it "the most important development of the entire campaign this week," adding that "John McCain can become an emblem for people about what is wrong with Washington."

But the story of the DHL deal--and McCain's role in it--is less an emblem of what's wrong with Washington than an example of what happens when a complicated tale of globalization gets filtered through the prism of a white-hot presidential race. Because, in reality, McCain played a largely peripheral--and, from all available evidence, principled--role in approving the DHL deal; and, what's more, the deal itself was once considered a boon to the Ohio community it now threatens to destroy. But, in the current presidential campaign, both of these realities are being largely ignored. And for that, it turns out, John McCain has no one to blame but himself.

With runways of 9,000 and nearly 11,000 feet set on 2,200 acres, the Wilmington air park is one of the largest privately owned airports in the United States. But, when Airborne Express was its owner, the airport was hardly being used to its full potential. Mired in a distant (and perennial) third place in the U.S. express delivery market, behind FedEx and UPS, Airborne Express was, in the assessment of one industry analyst, "always teetering on the brink of financial collapse." And so, when DHL--which had a booming international air express business but a marginal presence in the United States- -decided that it wanted to compete with FedEx and UPS in the American market, Airborne Express was a ripe target for takeover. In 2003, Deutsche Post World Net, the German company that owns DHL, offered $1.05 billion to purchase Airborne Express and its assets-- including the Wilmington air park.

more...

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=50ed4b10-2e21-4e9a-b7d5-ca0904ceece9