Early this morning a big bus with "Romney-Ryan" painted on the side rolled into a parking spot outside the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. For much of the time I'm there, I’m the only person standing near the bus. Some people who drive by seem to think I’m with the Romney campaign and yell at me out their car windows.
MAN: “Obama!”
WOMAN: “Obama!”
Finally, someone walks up who seems happy to see the bus. He’s wearing a Romney button on his shirt. He doesn’t go in the bus, though, even though the door is open. He wasn’t sure what to do.
MICHAEL MAY: “I wasn’t presuming that I was supposed to go in there. I guess I could, I dunno.”
After a while, the man walks away. A woman on a morning run stops in front of the bus just long enough to ask me a question.
WOMAN: “We wanted to get a yard sign, and we don’t know where to get one…a Romney one.”
She jogs on, saying she might come back later for her sign.
But before all that, I do go in the bus, and I meet Jason Osborne, the director of the get-out-the-vote campaign bus tour.
OSBORNE: “We think this is our 10th county in three days. And we’re going to continue on throughout the state until the election, hopefully hitting every single county at least once.”
I’m curious as to why the Romney bus came here to the heart of Democratic territory on this day, when President Obama’s has an event just blocks away.
OSBORNE: “You know, oddly enough, I didn’t even know that he was here until last night.”
The Romney bus did draw bigger crowds elsewhere in Ohio -- just not here, in the heart of Cleveland.
