It's a quiet morning in America's Mid West, but it won't be quiet for long because there's a circus that's coming to town. For the national media, the Republican primary has become an obsession yet for the people on the street it seems to be a lightning rod for many of the things wrong in today's America.
REPORTER: What's your general impression of the quality of the contest?
VOTER: It seems kind of dismal. It seems as though you're watching people try to figure out some sort of lowest common denominator politics, and so vying to underwhelm one another in order to create the largest space possible, so it’s kinder sickening.
I spent two weeks on the trail - the Mid West is a key battle ground and no stranger to hard times. It's a region that's usually proud of its status as a bell-weather - it is said ‘as Ohio goes so goes the nation’. But instead of pride, I find an unending disquiet.
MAN: People are so disconnected and disempowered that they don't see their own power, they don't see how important democracy really is.
SAMUEL JOSEPH WURZELBACHER, JOE THE PLUMBER, CONSERVATIVE ACTIVIST: They talk a good game. They talk a good game but all they do is talk. There's no action.
The reason that there's so much talk is the media remains keen to listen. At events like this one, you'll find almost as many reporters as supporters. This event exemplifies the key criticisms of Mitt Romney's campaign for the Republican nomination. It's over staged, mechanical and as always there's a barrier between Romney and the people there to see him.
MITT ROMNEY: I'm very concerned about jobs, getting our economy going again. I'm concerned about kids and making sure our kids aren't burdened with extraordinary debts and a weak economy. This President has made some promises he hasn't been able to keep. He told us that he would cut the deficit in half. He's doubled it, it’s amazing that he has been such a failure, he's out of ideas, he's out of excuses. And in 2012 we're going to make sure he's outs of office.
It's 8:30 on a Wednesday morning and Romney's audience listens patiently but not passionately. In the crowd I see someone I wasn't expecting to meet, the man's name is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. He's more famously known as Joe the plumber.
SAMUEL JOSEPH WURZELBACHER: Is there a disconnect between Washington DC, which I don’t know if people know this, that it is now the richest city in the country, between the rest of America? Absolutely.
Joe was just an ordinary guy until he met the then senator Barack Obama on the street during the 2008 election.
SAMUEL JOSEPH WURZELBACHER: $278,000 a year. You're new tax plan is going to tax me more.
And a video of their conversation made headlines.
BARACK OBAMA: Right now, everybody is so pinched that business is bad for everybody. And I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody. I respect what you do and your question.
That single phrase to spread the wealth around was the launching point for a war between Republicans and soon to be President Obama that lasts till today. It was the phrase that in Republicans minds branded Obama a socialist.
SAMUEL JOSEPH WURZELBACHER: Politicians are used car salesmen, they know how to brand, they know how to message and they know how to market. These guys are not solving problems. They're creating more problems.
Joe isn't alone when he tells me that in this election cycle the candidates seem to be hacking at each other more than ever before. That's largely because of a recent Supreme Court ruling freed up private and anonymous donors to spend unlimited amounts of money on their own hatchet jobs.
ROMNEY AD: The prime Medicare fraud - the victims are American taxpayers.
The boss - Mitt Romney. Romney supervised a company guilty of massive Medicare fraud. He pocketed a half a million dollars - the cost to taxpayers - $40 million.
These ads range from the wildly inaccurate to the outright absurd.
ROMNEY AD: Romney is firing his mud at Rick Santorum. In the end, Mitt Romney's ugly attacks are going to backfire.
Adding to the air of negativity is the nonstop election coverage where analysis is overshadowed by the gaffes of the candidates played over and over again.
RICK SANTORUM, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: While I have a personal moral objection to it, even though I don't support it, that I voted for bills that included it. I made it very clear in subsequent interviews that I don't support that. I've never supported it.
MITT ROMNEY: I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there and if it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich. They're doing just fine. I like to be able to fire people that provide services to me. We can raise taxes. It goes to the people. Where do you think it goes?
The only people I meet who seem unconcerned about the attack culture are Obama supporters. Like Mike Kubisek, a chicken farmer, or has he likes to put it, a chicken evangelist.
MIKE KUBISEK: They're out to destroy each other. All we have to do to win this election is pull up their edge and run them against them.
Even the candidates' most loyal supporters don't like what they see today, like Beau Allen who fundraises for Romney.
REPORTER: It must be hard to sit ringside and watch the punches be thrown?
BEAU ALLEN: It's hard. I mean, Newt Gingrich tried for a while to stay out of it. He was trying to take the high ground which I think is noble. But it's difficult when you have all these third-party groups that are not affiliated to anyone coming out and bashing people.
MAN: Romney is a good man. I believe he is but I don't believe in his gut he's a conservative. I just think that is what it comes down to, people have to have an ideology and I don't think when it's knee-jerk time that he will go with it. That's his problem, that’s why he can’t sure up his base. He’s a slick guy who looks the best and talks the best but when you get to the core of it, I don't think he's conservative. That's his problem with me.
Of all the candidates, it's Rick Santorum who has branded himself most successfully as a total contrast to the sitting President. He will go so far as to say they have different ideologies, a catchphrase, Senator Santorum uses to deepen the questions about Obama’s supposed socialism and even cast doubt about the man’s faith in a Christian God.
RICK SANTORUM: You see, liberalism is an ideology. Socialism is an ideology. Conservatism is simply what works and what's proven to make sense in America. It's common sense.
Outspent by Mitt Romney 12 to 1, Rick Santorum has come from as little as 2% national support to become a serious contender for the Republican nomination by painting Mitt Romney and the President on the same coin.
RICK SANTORUM: The last thing that Ohio wants to do is to nominate a Republican who gives away the most important issue in this campaign - Obama care. Governor Romney supported a federal mandate at the very time it was being debated. Stand for us. Help us, go out and vote for us. Make a difference. Sign people up and help us win. Thank you and God bless you.
Andy Brenner heard Rick Santorum’s message and decided to take it door to door.
ANDY BRENNER: I think about what are we going to do and how we're going to win? Santorum does not have the baggage but he takes the stand and I don't know, whether it's a conservative issue, whether it's right to life, pro-family or even the tax issue for the middle class, he is, he stands up for it. He stands up and he believes in what he says. And that I think is genuine. It's coming from the heart. I think he's also one of us.
WOMAN: I feel very strongly about Rick Santorum's view on life, the sanctity of life. I feel like when you know a person's view on that particular subject, you will get a really good sense of how they will act and vote in many other areas. I will be supportive of the Republican candidate but it would be very challenging for me if it wasn't Santorum.
As we drive, Andy and I talk about the negative ads and the attacks.
ANDY BRENNER: He's making business decisions and politics is a business whether people or like it or not. Politics is a business. In the case of Santorum, his support is coming from the grass-roots. He can go there and get hundreds of volunteers to go door to door for him and speak on his behalf. That makes up for the millions that are being spent on radio and TV ads by Romney, even if there negative.
In my few short weeks here, the contest has really come down to the two men, Andy’s guy Santorum stealing the conservative hearts and Beau’s man Mitt, capturing anyone for whom the economy is key. The only passionate Newt Gingrich supporter I meet is Walter Slaughter, holding up a sign on a street corner, hoping to drum up votes for a candidate who barely showed up to fight for the Mid West.
WALTER SLAUGHTER: I just voted for Newt Gingrich for President. There we go.
So when I showed up to see the only other remaining candidate, Ron Paul, I expected more of the same. And I was mightily surprised. 5,000 energised young people have shown up to hear Paul's message about a libertarian revolution.
REPORTER: Why is it that Paul attracts such a different and larger crowd?
I think it's because the youth, especially in this countries, recognise there's something wrong with what’s going on, something wrong with this government, and that the power should be back in the hands of the people, not with corporations, not with big business or the Government. Ron Paul wants a reduction in Government size and power and I think that's an attractive message for the youth of this country who are waking up and realising something is wrong here.
For young people frustrated with the political system, Ron Paul's message to tear down a great deal of the system resonates.
REPORTER: What's your name?
JEFF: My name is Jeff. I'm one of the currently used to be middle class, now broke in shit families that Ron Paul is trying to save from oblivion.
REPORTER: Do you feel like you're in danger of sliding in to oblivion?
JEFF: Not only am I in danger of everything going worse than anybody could imagine, I'm also a father. I can't let my son live the way things are going right now. He's five months old. He's my baby boy. And if this man, and I believe he's the only man who cares about you, me, this guy, that guy, my son included, he needs to be in office.
And when America's favourite libertarian takes to the stage, one of the biggest applauses of the entire campaign.
RON PAUL: The country is poor because everything is based on debt and this is the reason the middle class is getting smaller. The middle class is getting poorer. There's another characteristic of what happens when a country destroys its money and power gravitates in to a central location like the federal government. The power then takes the value or the wealth of the middle class. It's automatically transferred to the wealthy. This is what's been happening.
Ron Paul's presidential bid has been largely ignored by the American media but he's clearly touched a chord that the other candidates have missed.
MITT ROMNEY: This is an election and I hope I'm the nominee with your support. But this is an election about the soul of America. What kind of nation America is going to be over the coming century?
That phrase of Mitt Romney's - an election for the soul of America - really sticks with me as I drive away and out of the Mid West, because there is something happening to the very soul of America's democracy. It's being dragged down somehow and I wonder with almost a year of campaigning still ahead, will any Republican or Democrat be able to shake off all the dirt and truly inspire and lead their people in the days ahead.
Reporter/Camera/Editor
AARON LEWIS
Producer
DONALD CAMERON
Original Music composed by VICKI HANSEN