September 14, 2008

Section: Main Story

Wilmot is solid GOP country
TIM BOTOS
tim.botos@cantonrep.com
WILMOT In a town where horses and buggies share U.S. Route 250 with semi-trailer trucks,
voters stand by the GOP elephant.
When most of the nation voted for Bill Clinton, this village in the southwestern corner of Stark
County chose George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole by landslide margins. And when John Kerry carried
Stark, people here voted overwhelmingly to send George W. Bush back to the White House.
"It's very Republican ... family and church (are) very important to a lot of people," said 47-yearold Eles Yoder, a registered Republican who is restoring an 1885 brick home on Lawnford Avenue.
CONSERVATIVE TIES
Simply put, it's a very conservative area.
At 0.16 square miles, it could fit inside the city of Louisville 35 times over. Wilmot is a village of
335 with two churches, a Christian school and a sign on a W. Main Street utility pole that urges
"Believe in Jesus and be saved." It's also along the outskirts of Amish country, dominated by
strong Anabaptist beliefs.
"I think the Amish have had a big influence on our lifestyle," Jeff Reser said from the driver's
seat of an electric golf cart he drove to a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes. He's not sure
how he'll vote in November.
He and his father, Donald Reser, often take Amish tradesmen (who don't drive cars) to and from
work sites.
The elder Reser is a Democrat. He drives the golf cart around town, too, as if the village is a
Florida retirement community. A retired railroad electrician, he can barely distinguish Democrats
from Republicans these days. Neither, he said, has helped him with the $50 a month hike in his
heating budget or explained why gasoline prices jumped from $3.45 to $3.79 a gallon in a matter
of hours.

"I'm 80 years old, and I don't have much longer to live," Reser said.
REPUBLICAN LANDSLIDE
For every Donald Reser, there are two Republicans. Of all voting precincts in Stark, Wilmot has
the smallest percentage of Democrats. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by an almost
2-to-1 margin opposite of the county's ratio.
Harold Meese sells tomatoes, onions, peppers and watermelons from a roadside stand on Main
Street, at one of the village's two traffic lights. A Vietnam veteran, he retired 20 years ago as a
computer operator at The Pentagon. He moved home to care for his mother. She since died, but
he decided to stay.
"We put the Democrats into Congress, and they haven't done a thing," Meese said, adding that
he'll vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin. "I love her. She's my kind of woman. She tells it like it
is."
David Klar, a Democrat, said a vote for McCain is the same as a vote for President Bush.
"McCain's talking about changing Washington ... he's been in the Senate for 27 years; so why
didn't he change it before?"
not so average
Wilmot is average-town U.S.A. in median household income ($38,750). However, it's markedly
different in race (99.1 percent white), and college graduates (8.3 percent compared to 24.4
nationally).
Founded in 1836, Wilmot is noisy and quiet at the same time. Trucks carrying an assortment of
goods from Louisiana, Maine, Michigan and other far-away places roar through town all day on
Routes 62 and 250. At the same time, on streets such as Maple and Milton, children jump on
trampolines and parents sit on front porches and say "howdy" to strangers. It's a place, neighbors
said, where people prefer to keep to themselves. But at the same time, they're willing to help, and
scoot out of jobs at the Amish Door Restaurant on a moment's notice to jump on an EMS call with
the volunteer fire department.
Retired steelworker Mark Kimball recently gave up his duties as fire chief, though he remains on
the force. A Republican, Kimball said neither candidate impresses him, though he leans toward
McCain. "Either way, there's going to be history made. A black president ... or the first female vice
president."

The right to bear arms is one of Kimball's most important issues he loves to hunt deer and
squirrels. "It seems like the Democrats always want to take your guns away."
Robert and Lillian Meese have a political split in their Milton Avenue home. A retired Wilmot
postmaster, he's a Republican. She's a Democrat, who was raised in a Democratic family. Still,
she's not yet sold on Obama.
"I'm still wavering ... wondering what he can and will do," she said.
Eles Yoder, who's restoring the old house on Lawnford, will vote for McCain. She's more intrigued
by Palin than the senator himself. Yoder said she agrees with a statement from a pundit who said
McCain will be remembered for the woman he selected, while Obama will be remembered for the
woman he didn't.
"If he had picked Hillary, we'd be looking at a different situation," Yoder said.
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