April 13, 2006

Yellow Springs resident Connie Crockett is running for state representative of the 84th District on the Democratic ticket.

By Lauren Heaton

Minus the coonskin cap and musket, Yellow Springs resident Connie Crockett is following in the footsteps of her ancestor Davy Crockett by setting out to join the Ohio state legislature in this year’s election. In her own words, Connie Crockett is a maverick candidate. But she is unopposed in next month’s Democratic primaries and is taking her time to strategize a plan for change as the new 84th District representative.

Crockett is running against two-term incumbent Republican Chris Widener, who has a solid constituency. But the 84th District also has an increasing number of independents who are unattached and looking for leadership, she said. She has spent a lot of time on the road lately, getting to know the people in the mostly rural district. Many feel they don’t have a voice, and after 16 years of Republican rule and perceived catering to big business, she said, they want representation for their small towns and communities.

“When I’ve approached the liar’s table at a local restaurant, people have said to me, ‘We’re lifelong Republicans, and we’re looking for something else,’ ” she said.

Small towns are what Crockett knows best, she said. She grew up in Sewickley, a small town in western Pennsylvania, and has lived in Yellow Springs for 25 years, helping to manage it as a two-term Village Council member in the late 1980s and early 90s. She also knows Greene County, where she managed Bill Clinton’s second presidential campaign and later Mary Boyle’s Senate campaign in 1998.

The 84th District sprawls much larger than the area Crockett is most familiar with. But its 110,000 voters are spread out over Madison County and parts of Clark and Greene Counties and is mostly farmland, with London, population 8,700, as the biggest city. Redistricting in Ohio over the past several years has separated the traditionally liberal voting metropolitan areas from the rural areas, giving conservatives an unfair advantage, she said. But Crockett feels that many of her constituents are tired of the gerrymandering and the perceived corruption that leads politicians to favor megafarms and centralized development over small communities.

The economy in the Midwest is flagging, especially in this area, she said, and small businesses are having trouble competing and staying afloat with the exorbitant cost of healthcare and Ohio’s high taxes. Crockett was recently married to Mike Groeber, whose family has owned a small locksmith business in Springfield for three generations. The couple sees the challenges faced every day by a community-oriented business which wants to provide personal service, she said.

“The cost of running small businesses is untenable, and it has really touched me to see people working so hard just to survive,” Crockett said. “As I travel, I see people rubbing sticks together trying to figure out, ‘how do we get people to come to our town?’ ”

Through her former work with the Miami Valley Communications Council and currently as a public education research associate at the Kettering Foundation, Crockett has gained what she believes is a positive perspective on unification and cooperation. On the communications council she helped residents in many cities figure out how to share infrastructure and public services, and at the foundation she has worked with public administrators and elected officials to find solutions to support the public education system in Ohio.

The political jurisdictions in Ohio make regional cooperation a challenge, but Crockett feels the people in her district have a lot of common concerns about being shut out of the center of decision making, she said. People need an opportunity to share their views on the core issues about the economy, education and the environment, so that together they can begin to find solutions that face them on a local level, she said.

“I have understood it’s not good to persuade people because I don’t think it’s healthy for a democracy for experts and leaders to direct,” she said. “They need to hear from the public and there needs to be a mechanism set up for people to be heard. This is how we will draw the public back into active citizenry, which is the core of democracy.”

Yellow Springs is good at inviting citizen participation and at visioning as a community, Crockett said. She learned a lot from women leaders such as Gene Trolander, Jean Hudson and Bev Viemeister, who encouraged her to serve on Village Council. She stopped running for elected office shortly after her first husband, Jim Gahagan, died in 1991, and focused on raising her two daughters, Mariah and Lily. But she has stayed connected to area politics and is now learning, with the help of someone she calls her “political operative,” to play the game on a professional level with money, voter research and the hundreds of volunteers she will need to win the election on November 7.

“I’m back,” she said unequivocally.

Crockett has spent the last several months on a listening campaign and is now launching into organizing brochures, mailings and some serious fundraising. She is ready to put forth her energy and all of her spare time to give people what she feels is an opportunity to buy into something different.

“I think there are a lot more independents than anybody else, and they’re open,” Crockett said. “My party says no one’s ever lost who’s knocked on 10,000 doors and raised $100,000.”

Crockett finds inspiration in the legacy of her family ancestry, and when thinking about how to characterize her campaign, she used one of many famous Davy Crockett quotes.

“He said, ‘First, be sure you are right, then go ahead,’” she said. “I’m pretty sure I’m right on this campaign.”

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com