DaytonDailyNews.com

COLUMBUS — Don't tell restaurant owner Bill Seip that Democrat Barack Obama is bad for business.

Seip knows better.

It's been more than a week since Obama made his surprise stop at Seip's Fireside Restaurant in Georgetown on Thursday, Oct. 9, and folks in the Brown County village still are buzzing about it, said Seip.

The last presidential campaign visit came from William Jennings Bryan in the early 1900s, said Seip.

Ulysses S. Grant, the great Union Civil War general and the first Ohio-born president, moved with his family to Georgetown soon after his birth in Point Pleasant in nearby Clermont County in 1822 but nobody way back then knew Grant was headed for the White House.

At the Fireside, Obama ordered up a "Big O" burger — a double cheeseburger – and coconut cream pie to go. Gov. Ted Strickland, Obama's traveling companion and guide through Ohio's Appalachian region, had lemon pie.

The day after Obama's stop, Seip made the "Big O" the daily special and dubbed it the "Obama Burger."

"I liked the guy myself," Seip, 46, said of Obama. "He was really down to earth. The way he took care of everybody. He was a nice guy."

That doesn't mean Obama has Seip's vote.

"I can't say which way I'm voting," Seip said.

Obama talked with Seip at the restaurant after somebody told Obama that Seip was a Republican. Seip said he's not committed to either party.

"I usually swing both ways," said Seip. "I vote for the man or the woman."

In fact, said Seip, he didn't vote for President Bush in either 2000 or 2004 and had little good to say about the Republican incumbent.

He preferred Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican Ronald Reagan, said Seip.

How many voters "swing" for Obama and Republican John McCain in Brown County and Ohio's other Appalachian counties could have a big effect on which candidate carries Ohio and wins the presidency. Obama doesn't have to win the counties but he needs to do better than Democrat John Kerry did in 2004, when he got just 36 percent of the vote in Brown County to about 64 percent for President Bush.

Strickland, a native of Duck Run in Scioto County, has expressed concern that conservative Democrats in the region might be hesitant to vote for a black candidate and urged Obama to campaign there personally to make his case.

While not committing himself to Obama, Seip is ready for change in Washington.

"The economy around here sucks," he said. The United States is sending too much money overseas, including to pay for the war in Iraq, said Seip.

The United States shouldn't have gone to war there "in the first place," said Seip.

McCain supports the Iraq war but he'd get the same warm welcome as Obama got, said Seip.

McCain might be good for business, too, but Seip should check with McDonald's before making a "Big Mac" the daily special.