Christopher Booker: The Apollo Grill has been a fixture in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for
over 20 years. But like restaurants around the country the coronavirus forced
the small business to shut its doors last spring. Takeout orders and a Paycheck
Protection Program loan provided a life line, but the money ran out in 8
weeks.
Since June, owner Rachel
Griffith has been able to reopen her restaurant under outdoor dining
guidelines, bringing all of her staff back, for now.
Rachel Griffith: We've been very lucky that we have had some nice weather and we've
been able to expand our outdoor dining. Without that, we would be in big
trouble. But with looking forward, what's going to happen when the weather gets
colder?
Christopher Booker: Such uncertainty for a small business owner has become commonplace
in America. But Griffith’s concerns are perhaps just a bit more consequential
as the 2020 presidential race enters its final phase.
While Pennsylvania has
long been a sought after electoral prize, both presidential candidates have
been trying to convince voters that they are better suited to revitalize an
economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
And nowhere in
Pennsylvania is that more contentious than here in the Lehigh Valley, a
swing area of northeastern Pennsylvania that includes the towns of Easton,
Allentown, and Bethlehem.
Christopher Booker: What holds the most weight for voters in 2020 here in the Lehigh
Valley?
Christopher Borick: Health care, you know, separate from the pandemic. Economic issues
are always there, the economy, jobs.
Christopher Booker: Chris Borick is Professor of Political Science and Director of the
Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Allentown.
Christopher Borick: Even when the economy seemed to be, by most macro economic
indicators, sailing along earlier this year, when we asked people about the
number one issue that they were looking for in 2020 for their vote, they would
tell us economic issues.
Christopher Booker: But this region is no stranger to hard times - the area is known
for being the home of Bethlehem Steel.
Christopher Booker: So when we think of U.S. Steel, this is- this is it.
Don Cunningham: Well, this is a big part of it. All throughout the 20th century,
a good portion of it was based right here for four and a half miles along the
river.
Christopher Booker: Don Cunningham is the President and CEO of the Lehigh Valley
Economic Development Corporation - and he was the mayor when Bethlehem Steel
shut down its last local factory in 1998.
Don Cunningham: We had spent a lot of time talking about what we needed to do and
what should be done for the city to move forward. But there's still nothing
like when that phone call comes and you learn that it's over, that the plant's
going dark and the last jobs are- are... are done.
Christopher Booker: Bethlehem Steel had employed 31 thousand local workers at its
peak, which had dwindled to just over a thousand by the nineties. Cunningham
didn’t want Bethlehem to become another company town left to rust.
Don Cunningham: There are enough examples across Pennsylvania and the rest of the
the industrial belt of the Northeast and Midwest of towns that have just had
just kind of stayed stuck in its past. We wanted to ensure that we didn't do
that and people reacted to it, responded.
Christopher Booker: But the sight of the shuttered steel stacks in downtown Bethlehem
contradict the story of the Lehigh Valley. Yes the end of steel hurt, but the
region had a backstop- medical industry and higher education- commonly called
meds and eds.With three hospital systems and a dozen colleges and universities,
post-steel life hasn’t been nearly as painful as it has been for other areas
who saw their industries disappear.
Don Cunningham: We're better off today without the steel company than we were. We
have a more diverse economy, cleaner air, cleaner water. While it's a proud
part of our history economically, we're better today than we were 50 years
ago.
Christopher Booker: Part of the region’s success is also due to companies like
Flexicon, a equipment manufacturer, that moved to the Lehigh Valley in 2001.
Dave Boger is an Executive Vice President at the company.
Christopher Booker: Why did you move from New Jersey to Pennsylvania?
Dave Boger: Well, we needed to grow and we evaluated just like any company would,
a broad range of factors and availability of labor, availability of land and
location of current employees. And we decided that Pennsylvania was a good home
for us.
Christopher Booker: Flexicon creates manufacturing equipment for companies in 77 different
industries- and during the pandemic their work was deemed essential, allowing
them to retain their 235 employees.
David Boger: A lot of those 77 industries that we serve are essential
industries. We need to keep people fed. We need to keep producing hand
sanitizer. So a lot of those. And not only just the equipment itself, but it's
the spare parts to supply the machines and systems that we already have out in
the field. So it really was essential for us to remain open.
Christopher Booker: The Lehigh Valley has become a booming region, with a gross
domestic product of 41 billion dollars, employing more than 300 thousand
people. manufacturing companies like Flexicon account for 34 thousand of those
jobs, but the biggest sector is healthcare, which has only grown during the
pandemic.
Stephen Tang: We're gonna be expanding our current facilities. This will be one
of the buildings that will expand.
Christopher Booker: And this is all for the coronavirus test.
Stephen Tang: It is completely.
Christopher Booker: Stephen Tang is the CEO of Orasure, which normally makes HIV
tests.
Stephen Tang: This is our Oraquick product platform. It's currently used for
HIV, Hepatitis C and Ebola. Same configuration. There are two bars that you
read in under an hour by yourself, it means that you are positive for COVID-19.
So the benefit of this is it's rapid. You can administer it to yourself. You
get a result without any instrumentation or laboratory personnel. So our goal
is to be able to test anybody anytime and anywhere.
Christopher Booker: Tang, who went to school at Lehigh University says the area has
changed dramatically since he was a student decades ago.
Stephen Tang: You see a complete revitalization in those city centers.
Bethlehem, Easton, Allentown in particular, is really transformed itself. So I
think that's, that's good. You know, clearly for the economic health and and
the cultural health of the region, and it's still maintained by a vast meds and
ed's economic engine.
Donald Trump: To all the people of Pennsylvania I say, we are going to put the
miners and the factory workers and the steelworkers back to work, we’re
bringing the companies back.
Christopher Booker: But despite the economic transformation, President’s Trump’s call
to “Make America Great Again” by bringing jobs back, like those lost in the
steel industry, has resonated. One of the region’s two counties flipped in the
2016 election from Obama to Trump.
Christopher Booker: Is it a matter that the message that the Lehigh Valley had
diversified is not reaching everyone? Or is it a matter that large groups of
people are being overlooked by this new economy?
Christopher Borick: You know, even in 20-2016, for example, if we looked at anything,
by most indicators, the valley was doing pretty well. You know, housing prices
were going up, the economy was pretty good, unemployment was pretty low and the
president's message still resonated even in that time. And so you might ask,
well, what was it in kind of the broader economic landscape of the region that
allowed that? Some of those med and ed driven gains haven't been shared equally
and some of the folks that might of years ago had stronger buying power through
their, through their manufacturing jobs, could feel that they've been left
behind.
Christopher Booker: And these are the voters that both President Trump and former
Vice-President Joe Biden are courting.
In July Biden made one
of his first in-person appearances since the start of the pandemic near his
hometown of Scranton. President Trump has gone on the offensive in the region
as well, making campaign stops in Biden’s home county. A recent Morning Call/Muhlenberg
College poll gives Biden a four point lead in Pennsylvania, but shows
northeastern Pennsylvania, which includes the Lehigh Valley, as Trump’s biggest
area of support, with a 61 to 28 lead.
Christopher Booker: The president, as everyone knows, ran on the idea of bringing jobs
back and resurrecting older industries. And I'm curious how that message
actually resonated then and how and if it still resonates four years
later.
Christopher Borick: It's fascinating. One of the things I most, you know, as you look
back at 2016 and the president's rhetorical devices, the tropes that he turned
to in places like the Lehigh Valley or in Scranton, you know, he's up in
Scranton, he's talking about return of the coal industry. The coal industry
hasn't been there in seventy five years, but it sounds great. You make that
pitch in the Lehigh Valley.
Hey, we're gonna bring
steel back. Steel hasn't largely been here in a quarter of a century at any at
any level. It wasn't coming back for various macro economic reasons, but it
still was a pitch to individuals that might have hearkened to different days,
different types of of lifestyles. Now we'll see in the midst of economic
turmoil just how powerful that message may be in 2020 and how different it
might be received.
Christopher Booker: But like so much of the American economy, economic health may well
be in the eye of the beholder.
Chris Booker: Do you feel confident in the economy or are you worried?
Dave Boger: I feel good about it. I think that we were in a position where,
you know, a lot of times you have an economic downturn and there might be
either a variety of reasons or reasons are wide and varied and have more, I
don't know, economic factors associated with the decline. This is pretty
monolithic. There was one thing that caused the change in the economy or the
shift in in the need for people to produce goods. So I'm optimistic.
Christopher Booker: But this optimism is not being felt by everyone.
Rachel Griffith: You know, this industry is suffering severe, severe difficulties
right now. I mean, literally and I'm quoting another restaurant here when I say
this, we are on life support.
Chris Booker: How do you think this changes or challenges how people are feeling
about the election that's coming?
Rachel Griffith: I'm not really sure. Where, Where people feel their faith can be.
You know, I mean, we are, we have been relying on our government to guide us
and support us and to be there for us, especially now. But I don't necessarily
feel that the American people feel that we have that government behind us right
now.
###
|
TIMECODE |
LOWER
THIRD |
1 |
00:27 |
RACHEL GRIFFITH APOLLO GRILL |
2 |
01:34 |
CHRISTOPHER BORICK MUHLENBERG COLLEGE |
3 |
02:50 |
DON CUNNINGHAM LEHIGH VALLEY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORP |
4 |
03:13 |
COURTESY ST LUKES HOSPITAL |
5 |
04:01 |
DAVID BOGER FLEXICON |
6 |
04:42 |
COURTESY LVEDC |
7 |
05:13 |
STEPHEN TANG ORASURE |
8 |
06:10 |
NOVEMBER 2016 (ALL OTHER GRAPHICS ON SCREEN ARE FROM THE RECORDING – NOT
REMOVABLE) |
9 |
06:54 |
CHRISTOPHER BORICK MUHLENBERG COLLEGE |
10 |
09:19 |
DAVID BOGER FLEXICON |
11 |
09:53 |
RACHEL GRIFFITH APOLLO GRILL |