In The Miami Heat Of The Cleveland Night

Best and Worst post-LeBronathon analysis:  The Atlantic's Josh Green, who argues that his exit from Ohio on national TV just handed the Buckeye State over to the Tea Party.

I've spent the week traveling around Texas, particularly the Gulf area southeast of Houston, whose residents have been hit hard by the offshore drilling moratorium, the end of the Space Shuttle, and its successor program, Constellation. At the Fourth of July parade I attended in Friendswood, near the Johnson Space Center, the economic dislocation was palpable. Everybody worried that jobs were leaving and not coming back, so their kids would leave, too. NASA's decline in particular--Obama's space policy would end the agency's manned flights, a source of tremendous local pride--was upsetting to everyone, because the whole area was about to lose its identity.

There were four tents on the parade concourse with political themes: Republican, Democrat, Tea Party, and Glenn Beck's 9-12 outfit. The first two were nearly empty; the latter two were jammed with people, so I hung out there talking to them. They were angry about a lot of stuff, but the unifying theme was their feeling that they were on the losing end of things, and to hell with the system that had put them there.

Back to Ohio. The unemployment rate is well above the national average, nearly 11 percent. The state's manufacturing base has been decimated, and those jobs aren't coming back. And now, suddenly, the biggest star in the state -- an economic engine in his own right, and a guy who probably single-handedly made Cleveland a recognizable sports mecca all over the world -- has forsaken its residents. And not just forsaken them, but utterly humiliated them by forsaking them on a globally televised ESPN Special!

Would you be angry? I sure would be. And I'd be that much more amenable to the Tea Party message that everything is going to hell.

Yeah, let that sink in.  LeBron leaving Ohio for Florida is going to tip the state into the Red column?  Really?  Three thoughts on that.

1)  Polite response:  That seems like a rather pointed insult to the people of Ohio if you ask me.  There are real problems in not just Ohio's economy but all over the tri-state (also relative, that includes the Cincy IN-KY-OH tri-state, the Cleveland PA-WV-OH tri-state, and the Toledo IN-MI-OH tri-state areas) and people have bigger problems to worry about.

2)  Cynical response:  LeBron pantses Ohio on national TV, it's got to be Obama's fault, right?  That's a bit of a reach. Smacks of Obama Derangement Syndrome to me.  Quelle surprise to find this in The Atlantic.

3)  Really Somewhat Angry response:  So you're basically saying "Hey Ohio, this is the second really famous black man who screwed you over in the last 18 months", huh?  You, uh, really want to go down that particular road there, Josh?

At least he admits in the column that it's ridiculous to read too much into LeBron.  I agree.  Of course, it didn't actually stop Josh Green from going there, but there you are.