With no actual political news to report, the national media has picked up on the story.
“Ohio delegation blasts Mount McKinley name change,” USA Today reported
“Ohio Fumes,” headlined The New York Times, above a story that identified Alaska as the 49th state and Ohio merely as “the birthplace of Cincinnati chili.” (Which shows the danger of letting outsiders write about our state. Cincinnati chili is a SOUTHWEST Ohio thing; William McKinley was born closer to Cleveland, which is the home of the much more famous Chef Boy Ar Dee.)
Some people see this kerfuffle as political pandering, although that makes no sense. Ohio has millions of voters; Alaska has approximately half a million, not counting polar bears and whatnot. More to the point, Ohio has 18 electoral votes, while Alaska has only three.
For the record, William McKinley never set foot on the mountain in question, or anywhere else in Alaska. So why a mountain 3,000 miles away was named after a president from Ohio who is mostly famous for getting himself assassinated 83 years ago this coming Sunday is a bit of a mystery, anyway. Why not a mountain in Ohio? (Although the answer to that might be that there are no mountains in Ohio. The best we can do is a 1,550-foot bump in Logan County called Campbell Hill. We could rename that in McKinley's honor, I suppose, but then we'd have to listen to a lot of politicians whining about how that was a great insult to Bellefontaine.)
Even in his home state, McKinley doesn’t have a great recognition factor. If you took a poll of Ohioans today, McKinley probably would rank ahead of William Henry Harrison, but well behind Allison Janney. And if they do manage to take his name off the mountain, it’s not going to make him any less unknown. (Quick: Who was Everest?)
So I think I speak for most Ohioans when I say the peak question this week is not whether it should be Mount McKinley or Denali.
It’s whether it should be J.T. Barrett or Cardale Jones.
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