Glenn Beck Book Tour Makes Bizarre Visit to Heartland America

Peddling a book called Broke in a city busted through and through, Glenn Beck rolled into Wilmington, Ohio last week to gleefully proclaim miracles. 

Styling himself as a real-life Santa Claus, Beck promised the city a celebrity stimulus surge. He would host live shows at a downtown theater, charging people $125 a ticket and $500 for breakfast meet-and-greet. Up to 20,000 people would come, and what was left in their pockets would be spent on Main Street, buying chocolate chip cookies, Tupperware and homemade handbags. 

Maybe it was the cold weather. Maybe Beck overestimates his appeal. The anticipated 20,000 topped off at about 3,000, according to police. And while there was a buzz on Main Street, particularly in the bookstore where Beck signed copies of Broke, what was startling about his visit to Wilmington, a city with nearly 16 percent unemployment, was how many people either didn’t know who he was (“Beck, you mean the guitarist?”), or didn’t care (“I’m not seeing his show, he’s just a man, not a God.").

Accompanied by an entourage of young male assistants, Beck was a charmer in person, doughy, approachable and eager to please, dressed in jeans and an upscale Loro Piana scarf. Most of the face time required a fee, either $500 for a photo with him at breakfast, a $125 ticket to one of his shows, or $30 for a book that came with a prayer if asked. He spoke at one free evening event on an outdoor stage and by that time, the local police were treating him more like a candidate than an entertainer, with barricades and no-go zones.

In Beck’s eyes,  the 12,000-strong Wilmington is a shining example of the righteousness of his own conservative narrative. He describes the town as a place too proud to accept federal stimulus or government handouts even after losing thousands of jobs when the DHL distribution hub closed in 2008. On his November 22 radio broadcast he said, "This town hasn’t taken any money from the government. They don’t want any money from the government."  During his visit he described Wilmington as ”going through liberating strife,” which sounds a little like Rumsfeld’s “freedom can be messy.”

The problem is that none of it is true. The non-partisan Politifact.com gave Beck’s depiction of Wilmington a “pants on fire” rating. In fact, Wilmington has received more than $13 million in a variety of federal funds since a Bush-era 2008 emergency job training allocation. The very theater where Beck performed just received a $250,000 federal grant to help renovate a heating system and leaky roof. The grant was secured by Republican Congressmen Mike Turner,  a frequent critic of federal handouts – he voted against the federal stimulus package -- and an author of HR 57, the “Preserving Capitalism in America Amendment,” which would give permanent constitutional protection to American free enterprise.   

Beck follows a path of media stars who have adopted Wilmington as the little town that could. Comedian Jay Leno gave a free performance there during his 2009  Comedy Stimulus tour. The same year, celebrity chef Rachel Ray cooked Thanksgiving dinner for 2,000 people and donated  a year’s food supply and a brand-new kitchen to Sugartree Ministries, the local soup kitchen that feeds 150 people a day. But only Beck had the entrepreneurial spirit to mix good old capitalist greed with Christian charity, hawking his book and charging admission. To be fair, Beck claims that net proceeds of his Wilmington shows will go to local charities but no figures were made public and he never said he would forgo his own fee. The bookstore that sold 800 Broke titles also touted the event as charity, but it was coming from their end, not from Beck or the publisher.