Monday afternoon the hallowed halls of the Fifth Arena, home court of the "famed" University of Cincinnati Bearcats basketball "franchise", hosted a rally for Barack Obama.

Depending on the source estimates ranged from 13,000 to 15,000 people. Let's use the 13,000 number. Think about it, 13,000 liberal Democrats came out to listen to Barack Obama speak in Cincinnati. The next day Bill "the mongrel" Cunningham evoked the racism of the 1950's.

Cincinnati is a city with a serious split personality. Cincinnati is the home of the first professional fire fighters in the US. Fielded the first profesional baseball team, the Cincinnati Redlegs (Reds), the center of the historic underground railroad funneling runaway slaves across the Mason Dixon line (The Ohio River here) to freedom in the North as well as being the home of the recently founded Underground Railroad Freedom Center on the Cincinnati riverfront.

Cincinnati was also the home of Marge Schott, the bigoted owner of the Cincinnati Reds. Right wing talk radio thrives over WLW radio, the "Big One", at it's inception, the most powerful radio station on the planet. Bill Cunningham is part of the Cincinnati conservatice talk radio fear mongers.

Cincinnati was the fastest growing city in the US in the late 19th century, and the hub of the Miami Erie Canal. When the railroads wanted to make Cincinnati the railroad hub for the whole Midwest, the forward thinking progressives of declined. After all they had canals!

Chicago accepted the railroad's offer and the rest as they say is history.

Cincinnati also has a geographical split personality that manifests itself in more than one way. First there is the Civil War level conflict between the latte' drinking, Volvo driving East Siders, and the hot dog grilling, bowling alley visiting West Siders. There is also the regional split of the Ohio side of the river and the KY side of the river. There is the "educated and cultural hub" in Cincinnati, and the rural population just outside the 275 beltway.

If you are looking for the point in this blog, keep looking. It is really a means of highlighting the solid splits in our region, that are reflections of the national Jeckle and Hyde that makes up the US today.

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