Hard-Fought Battle in Hard-Hit Ohio

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The Final Campaign Weekend in Ohio

A look at what Democrats and Republicans of Lake County, Ohio did in the final weekend of campaigning to get out the vote.

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In 2004, Kerry carried Ohio's large and medium-size cities, the industrial Mahoning Valley around Youngstown, and the northern edge of Appalachian Ohio. Bush carried exurbs, most of Appalachia and the rest of rural Ohio.

This year, the Republicans are targeting the Mahoning Valley, where Obama was crushed in the state's Democratic primary. Democrats typically win more than 60 percent of the vote there, and the Obama campaign says the region is holding strong, thanks partly to the efforts of organized labor. But McCain and Palin have visited repeatedly, and even as polls nationally show Obama faring better with white working-class voters than Kerry did, valley Republicans say they are winning supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, as well as rank-and-file union members. They have given out more than 1,000 "Democrats for McCain" signs in Trumbull County alone.

"I'm struck by the uneasiness people express about Obama," said Mahoning County GOP Chairman Mark Munroe. "He doesn't seem to fit real well with my Midwesterners here."

In Columbus, one of several cities where Obama is counting on big support from both white and black voters, Franklin County Commissioner Marilyn Brown said she has been unsettled by questions about Obama's trustworthiness when she speaks to fellow Jewish voters. But in general, Brown is upbeat. The Obama operation, she said, is better run than Kerry's, which relied on an outside group for turnout help that by law could not be coordinated with the campaign.

Most encouraging for the campaign are the numbers from early voting. Of the 30,000 people who cast early ballots through Oct. 26 in Franklin County, 15,000 were Democrats and 1,260 were Republicans, with the rest unaffiliated. Democrats have returned absentee ballots at twice the rate of Republicans.

"It's a little frightening to me," Brown said. "You have to believe that the Republican Party, having been so well organized in '04, will have something coming, but I don't know what they're doing. I just can't believe they can make up this much ground."

Top McCain staff members in Ohio dismiss Obama's early-voting lead, saying the Democrats have simply been getting their most reliable voters to the polls, while Republicans have been targeting only sporadic voters for early voting.

Obama's biggest push has come far from the cities. In Appalachian Ohio, he is being aided by Gov. Ted Strickland, who hails from the region and has put his statewide network behind Obama, an asset Democrats lacked in 2004.

Polls suggest, though, that the Obama campaign is having the most success improving on Kerry's margins in central, western and southwestern Ohio, where it is trying to capitalize on discontent among independents who voted for Bush in 2004. In Warren County, an exurb between Dayton and Cincinnati, Bush won with 72 percent in 2004. That year, the Democrats' office was open 10 hours per week; now it's open 10 per day, with more than 300 volunteers available.

The campaign hopes to increase the Democrats' share in Warren from 27 percent to 35 percent. It is counting on voters like John Frame, 45, who supported Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole but has been disillusioned by Bush and sees Obama as a "different kind of Democrat." Tapping the Wall Street Journal next to his plate at a Bob Evans restaurant, Frame said that people like him, who stay informed and play by the rules, have been let down by a Republican Party that devalued knowledge and accountability.

A former airline employee who returned to law school after being laid off, Frame was ambivalent about volunteering at first because he has long liked McCain, but the selection of Palin prompted him and his wife to go all out for Obama. They are "neighborhood team leaders," overseeing the campaign for all of Springboro, and they are surprised by the response they have received.