Hard-Fought Battle in Hard-Hit Ohio

Video

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.

» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER

"We thought we were the only ones in our area who thought the way we do," he said.

But the Republicans are doing what they can to hold the exurbs. Their Warren office was filled all of last week, buttressed by a couple of "marshals" -- GOP operatives from Washington who volunteer their time to help organize in swing states.

Palin's role in motivating the operation is palpable. Lori Viars, who works part time for a local antiabortion organization, said she was not that energized about McCain until he picked Palin. Joy Glover was still glowing over the memory of Palin accepting her gift of a silver elephant necklace during a recent visit.

The office ran out of yard signs after handing out 10,000. Viars said she and another evangelical Christian have distributed to fellow church members 5,000 copies of a "voter issues guide" that describes Obama as supporting human cloning and opposing "protecting the lives of children who are born alive and survive a botched abortion," both misstatements of his record.

It looks similar in Delaware County, a Columbus exurb where Bush won 66 percent of the vote in 2004. On a recent evening, the Republican office, a former lighting store, had volunteers at many of its 32 phones. Traci Saliba, a court clerk who chairs the county campaign, said there were even more volunteers this year, thanks to a growing population. The volunteers have managed to block out all the talk of McCain's poor odds, she said. "We're not focused on what everyone else in the universe thinks we should be focused on," she said. "We're on task, and we're stronger than ever before."

One new volunteer is Kate Yonkura, 32, who oversees the county canvassing operation while her two sons play at her feet. She said she has gotten involved out of fear of an Obama victory. "It's the national security thing, the threat from terrorists -- that's what keeps me up at night," she said.

That evening, there was much less activity at Obama's Delaware office -- it was empty but for two organizers, one of whom had arrived days before, and three local teenagers.

* * *

The Obama push was more evident in Chillicothe, a city of 22,000 that sits on the line between flat farmland and Appalachia, that served as the state's capital 200 years ago, and that is home today to two state prisons, a veterans hospital, and a large paper mill and a large truck plant, both of which have laid off hundreds.

The Obama office is staffed by three organizers and plastered with sign-up schedules for get-out-the-vote shifts in the final days. Fifty volunteers from Ross County and an adjoining county attended voter-turnout training last month.

Simkins, the wife of a highway laborer, volunteered to be a neighborhood team leader after being urged by her brother, an ironworker, and hearing Michelle Obama speak in Chillicothe. "She really spoke to me about family issues, what the government can do to help us, and helping us to help ourselves, and everything not being about the wealthy," she said.

Early last week, Simkins was making calls to ensure voters who had requested absentee ballots had returned them. Then the emphasis shifted into getting out the rest of the vote.