The Buckeye Stops Here

WHAT about that pillow?” I ask Standard Textile CEO Gary Heiman, pointing to an inviting cushion lying on a metal table amid a pile of multicolored scraps and samples. Heiman nods, and the grinning VP in charge of product devel- opment standing next to him grabs the pillow off the table. “The pillowcase is just a normal pillowcase,” he says, “but feel the pil- low itself.” I do. It feels like it’s been in a refrigerator. “Sixty-eight degrees,” the grinning VP says. “We can actually set the tempera- ture of this fabric through the manufacturing process.” The cool pillow is just one of several cutting-edge products I’m shown during my tour of the R&D lab at Standard Textile’s Cincinnati headquarters. Two days have passed since the Ohio primary, and I’m here because after listening to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attack each other all week for being insuffi- ciently opposed to free trade, I wanted to meet the Ohioan who wrote the sentence, “Rather than banking on high-powered lob- byists to stave off the march of globalization, we welcome the end of [import] quotas.” That sentence can be found in an op-ed Heiman wrote for the Washington Post in 2005 titled “Innovation, Not Quotas,” in which he called on the American textile industry to stop asking the government to protect it from import competition. Compare his attitude to the one expressed by eight out of ten Ohioans who voted in the Democratic primary, and who told exit pollsters that U.S. trade with other countries “loses jobs.” FREE TRADE ISN’T THE PROBLEM

“That entire notion is nonsense,” Heiman says. Trade takes the blame when people lose their jobs because it’s an “easy tar- get,” he says, absolving shortsighted industry leaders and labor unions when companies run into financial trouble and jobs are eliminated. Rather than take responsibility for failing to adapt, “it’s much easier to say, ‘It’s their fault. It’s China’s fault. The Chinese are taking away our jobs,’ when in fact, that’s just not the case,” he says, citing five years of consistently low U.S. unemployment rates.

About the Author

Stephen Spruiell

Stephen Spruiell is a former staff reporter for National Review Online.

WHAT about that pillow?” I ask Standard Textile CEO Gary Heiman, pointing to an inviting cushion lying on a metal table amid a pile of multicolored scraps and samples. Heiman nods, and the grinning VP in charge of product devel- opment standing next to him grabs the pillow off the table. “The pillowcase is just a normal pillowcase,” he says, “but feel the pil- low itself.” I do. It feels like it’s been in a refrigerator. “Sixty-eight degrees,” the grinning VP says. “We can actually set the tempera- ture of this fabric through the manufacturing process.” The cool pillow is just one of several cutting-edge products I’m shown during my tour of the R&D lab at Standard Textile’s Cincinnati headquarters. Two days have passed since the Ohio primary, and I’m here because after listening to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attack each other all week for being insuffi- ciently opposed to free trade, I wanted to meet the Ohioan who wrote the sentence, “Rather than banking on high-powered lob- byists to stave off the march of globalization, we welcome the end of [import] quotas.” That sentence can be found in an op-ed Heiman wrote for the Washington Post in 2005 titled “Innovation, Not Quotas,” in which he called on the American textile industry to stop asking the government to protect it from import competition. Compare his attitude to the one expressed by eight out of ten Ohioans who voted in the Democratic primary, and who told exit pollsters that U.S. trade with other countries “loses jobs.” FREE TRADE ISN’T THE PROBLEM

“That entire notion is nonsense,” Heiman says. Trade takes the blame when people lose their jobs because it’s an “easy tar- get,” he says, absolving shortsighted industry leaders and labor unions when companies run into financial trouble and jobs are eliminated. Rather than take responsibility for failing to adapt, “it’s much easier to say, ‘It’s their fault. It’s China’s fault. The Chinese are taking away our jobs,’ when in fact, that’s just not the case,” he says, citing five years of consistently low U.S. unemployment rates.