Of course I ran as a Democrat being that I was also the Treasurer for the County Party here in the Cleveland area...

Even though there was this disconnect between the voting registers and the voting outcomes, I felt that I could ease their minds because I was an accountant. I mistakenly thought that the reason they voted republican was because they wanted fiscal restraint.

Time after time, these precincts that were 55% registered democrat would vote, by large margins, for republicans.

This particular Senate District had a very high concentration of Union folks living there.

I would go to a lot of union halls and give speeches and meet with the leadership. That was all rah rah and hunky dory.

But afterwords, when I would go out to work the crowds I heard a lot of "you're a baby killer I ain't voting for you" or "you're gonna take my guns, I ain't voting for you..."

Every time I heard that from one person at a table I would see other heads nod in agreement.

The FOP and all the other local police fraternity's nine times out of ten go with the GOP because they think they are hard on Crime because liberals are on the side of the criminals...

It was very frustrating.

Then there were all the times I went going door to door and working off a voter file sheet. I only stopped at Independents and Democrat homes.

I was running against the prototype for todays conservatives, openly hated gays and was always quick to vilifying "some people"....

Mostly I got I'm with Gary from independents and the democrats were just polite.

It was hard to convince people to put up a year sign.

Even the local party organization wouldn't openly support me. They gave me token checks, were polite but when I asked for their endorsement, I got the hems and the haws...

There was this one time, after a brutal day of walking through two precincts, that really stuck with me.

I stopped at this house that showed all three people who were registered to vote were democrats.

I knocked on the door and the guy came to the door, looked me up and down and said "I ain't voting for you, you're gonna let niggers move into my neighborhood." He slammed the door in my face after I said "I guess that means your going to vote for the other guy."

I know it's anecdotal, but it was pretty clear that all the people who were registered as democrats only voted democrat when they participated in primaries.

It was very frustrating to see precincts that were 55% or more democrat went for republican over and over again.