Post date: Oct 28, 2012 11:58:36 PM
U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney are running about dead even in Ohio, the battleground state which has long been seen as the key to victory in the November Presidential election.
COLUMBUS, OHIO, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 20, 2012) (REUTERS) - An axiom in American politics is that as Ohio goes, so goes the election. Indeed, in the past 11 elections, no candidate has won the White House without winning the state of Ohio. The Midwestern state has been particularly hard hit by the economic recession and both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have spent millions there trying to convince voters they are better suited to turn Ohio's fortunes around.
Polls show U.S. President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney are running about dead even in the campaign to win 18 electoral votes the battleground state.Nationally, Obama still appears to have the upper hand in the state-by-state fight to cobble together the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency in the November 6 election.
Economic issues, as in most of the country, are forefront in the minds of voters in Ohio, where the unemployment rate hovers around 7 percent -- slightly better than the national unemployment rate.
While no Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio, a loss for Romney in the state would not entirely close the door to the White House.
"As of today I would still give Obama a small lead in Ohio but anything is possible based upon turn out, but also based upon (whether) can one candidate do a little better among groups than that candidate normally did," said Herb Asher, a professor emeritus of political science at Ohio State University.
Ohio is a diverse state -- an even mixture of rural and metropolitan regions, economically depressed areas and areas with renewed industry, Republicans and Democrats.
In Ohio's coal mining region in the southeastern part of the state, Romney has the edge. The coal industry in Ohio employs about 3,000 people, and it is estimated that there are 11 spinoff jobs for each employee. At Oxford Mining's coal operation in New Lexington, there is nothing undecided about this election in which coal workers complain that tighter environmental regulations under the Obama administration threaten the industry.
"We are struggling in the coal industry with tighter and tighter regulations. This current Administration seems to be struggling with us right now with these regulations and we really need to vote for Mitt Romney," said mining foreman John Boyle.
"In order to save my job I am going to vote for Romney," adds his co-worker Dan Lukas, an explosives blaster.
Barack Obama has questioned Romney's support for the coal industry. At a campaign event deep in Ohio's coal country, Obama dismissed his rivals support for the industry.
"When he was a Governor (he) stood in front of a coal fired plant and said, 'This plantkills people.' And now he is running around acting like he is Mr. Coal. Come on. Come on. You know that is not on the level," Obama told a campaign rally on the campus ofOhio University in Athens. "Does anybody really look at the guy and think man that guy is really into coal?"
In the crowd, Kate Cotrill, a mother of two, looked beyond coal to the state's wider economic troubles.
""I think this election is critical," she said. "I think it is a pivot point for the country. I think most of us are tired of the upper 5 percent; 3 percent getting taken care of, and the families like my own family, like the people I went to college with here at Ohio University, the kids my kids go to school with, they deserve a fair chance. And I think Obama is going to fight for us. I don't think Romney has our interest at heart. He is too closely attacked to the massive corporations that he bargained for and his former positions."
The battle for the voters in the coal industry is a strategic maneuver of Romney. He hopes to peel blue-collar workers away from Obama, whose automobile industry bailout is widely credited in Ohio with saving the state's automobile industry from peril.
The Obama campaign has argued that the 2009 bailout of the auto industry has saved thousands of Ohio jobs, particularly in the Toledo area, and helped the state's unemployment rate of 7.2 percent stay below the national average.
Michael Coleman, the Democratic mayor of Columbus, thinks Ohio voters will show their support for the President's bailout of the industry at the polls. "He saved the auto industry. These people don't forget. In Ohio we don't forget. If somebody helped them they don't forget and they remain loyal. So he has a lot of strength in that area," Coleman said.
The Romney campaign concedes no ground in Ohio and are are determined to win the state -- after appeared nearly out of the Ohio race only last month.
"Certainly the polls have tightened up here. We see it as a dead heat race and we see us with the momentum," said Scott Jennings, Ohio State Director for the Romney campaign. "I always say public opinion is not an event it is a process and over the last few weeks the process has been working itself out in Mitt Romney's favor."
A win in Ohio would give Romney some margin of error to lose other states that are still in too-close-to-call. If he does not win Ohio, either a win in Wisconsin or a combination of Nevada and Iowa could propel the Republican to victory.
Romney has held more than 34 rallies in Ohio since securing the Republican nomination in August -- at each, reminding the Ohio voters that the choice they make on November 6 can swing the election in his favor.
"America does not have to have the long face we have right now under this president. We can get America going again, growing again, I know how to do it. I am calling on you for your help. I need Ohio to help me become the next President," Romney said.
That is a message which resonates in Oakfield, Ohio where Shirley Bolyard said that Obama has had his chance but failed to Ohio back on stead economic footing.
"I am going to vote for Mitt Romney because I think he can do something for our country that Obama hasn't been able to do in the last four years with the economy and Obamacare. I just don't approve and I'm just hoping Mitt Romney can make a change that Obama couldn't, she said."
Down the road in Glouster, L.R. Faires says he is supporting Obama for personal reasons.
"He's the type of guy I could sit down with at a bar and have a beer with and enjoy a conversation with," Faires said. "And, as big as he is, being the president, he would take what I have to say. He would ingest and think about it. I don't know that somebody like Romney would do that."
Out of the 7.9 million registered voters in Ohio, more than 400,000 Ohio voters have already cast ballots in the state's early voting program. Obama won Ohio by a little more than 200,000 votes in 2008 -- but the vote in 2012 may be tighter still.