From the Editor

Beverly, Biden and a Bygone Battleground

In early November, I found myself thinking a lot about the late New Yorker movie critic Pauline Kael. She was the most interesting and influential critic of her generation, and she was an unabashed admirer of Beverly D’Angelo, the Upper Arlington native who’s the subject of a fascinating profile by Peter Tonguette in this issue (Page 42). “She’s really a symbol of what’s wrong with movies right now,” Kael said in 1992. “How could an whaT wE actress so beautiful and talented not get cast in better films?” Then the presidential eleclEaRnED This MonTh tion to end all presidential elections came to a close just a few 1 the buckeye santas, a group of independent Kris Kringles, days before we put this issue to has been meeting via Zoom since bed, and another Kael quote the pandemic worsened (Page 23). popped into my head as I sat on my front porch and observed 2 Frank X. Resch is the fifth generation of his family to run the how my University District 108-year-old Resch’s bakery on the neighborhood responded to East side of Columbus (Page 30). Joe Biden’s victory. “I live in a rather special world,” Kael said 3 Retired Express CEo michael Weiss’ recently sold home in following Richard Nixon’s 1972 ultraexclusive new Albany Farms triumph over George McGov- includes six bedrooms and six and a ern. “I only know one person half baths (Page 56). who voted for Nixon.”

When the Associated Press called the election for Biden, my neighbors whooped, hollered, honked car horns, banged pots and pans, and danced in the street—not a surprising reaction if you look at voting results. According to unofficial tallies, 90 percent of voters in my precinct chose Biden, a 10-point improvement from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 percentage. In Franklin County overall, Biden captured 65 percent, a five-point increase from four years earlier.

We live in a divided country, of course, and the impromptu block party doesn’t reflect Ohio as a whole—or at least a good portion of it. I recently drove though Knox County, where seemingly every home had a Trump/Pence sign. The election confirmed that anecdotal evidence, with the GOP ticket capturing 71 percent of the Knox County vote, a five-point jump from 2016. Those results mirrored the red wave that occurred in other small towns and rural areas of the state, giving the Republican candidate a decisive eight-point victory in Ohio. “In a state like Ohio, if you add all the rural and small town votes, they’re worth a lot more than big city votes,” says Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of the political newsletter Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

The election also confirmed that Ohio, once the country’s preeminent presidential battleground, is now Trump land. For the first time since 1960, Ohio was on the losing side of a presidential election. Kondik, the author of the 2016 book “The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President,” says the state has grown less representative of the country overall—more white, fewer college graduates—and that’s pushed it toward Donald Trump’s Republican Party. The spotlight now shines on Georgia, Arizona and even Texas, all of which are more likely to decide who occupies the White House than Ohio in our current political climate.

I may live in a “special world,” to borrow a phrase from Kael, but Ohio is just another red state now—no matter how many pots and pans my neighbors clang.

Dave Ghose

dghose@columbusmonthly.com

Contributors

Peter Tonguette

profiled actress beverly D’Angelo (Page 42). his writing on film has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Sight & Sound.

Donna Marbury

is a freelance journalist and communications consultant. she wrote about airbrush artist Raymonn “sugar Ray” Daniels (Page 18).

Theodore Decker

wrote about the rise and fall of CeaseFire Columbus, a violence intervention program (Page 48). Decker is the metro columnist for The Columbus Dispatch.