By Gregory L. Giroux
Congressional Quarterly

Electoral votes: 21

Delegates: 170

Chairman: David Leland

Hotel: The Century Plaza (310) 277-2000

1996 Election:
Clinton – 47%
Dole – 41%
Perot – 11%

Vice President Al Gore, in his bid this year to keep the White House in Democratic hands, has little margin for error in the "battleground state" of Ohio. With 21 electoral votes, Ohio is the seventh-largest prize in the nation.

President Clinton, with Gore as his running mate, twice won all three of the industrial Midwest states - Ohio, Illinois and Michigan - that are deemed the most critical in this year's presidential election.

But Ohio provided the closest contests both times: Clinton defeated President George Bush in 1992 by 40 percent to 38 percent (with independent Ross Perot taking 21 percent) and challenger Bob Dole in 1996 by 47 percent to 41 percent.

Gore's task is to solidify a Democratic base packed with labor union members while extending an olive branch to centrist voters who were critical to Clinton's Ohio victories.

The advocacy of free-trade policies by the Clinton-Gore administration has alienated some unionized workers. But when asked if Gore would have any difficulty in winning overwhelming support of organized labor, state Democratic Party Chairman David Leland said, "To a great extent, the labor vote is on his side."

Leland, who is heading Ohio's convention delegation, said that 55 percent of Ohio's Democratic delegates belong to labor unions.

While acknowledging that sitting vice presidents often have a difficult time establishing their own identities as presidential candidates, Leland said Gore and Democrats should emphasize the current economic prosperity.

"The most important issue is that the people in this country are clearly better off than they were eight years ago, and [Gore] deserves a lot of credit for that," Leland said. "That's the kind of issue that we need to keep driving home in this campaign."

Gore's easy victory in Ohio's March 7 primary over his sole rival, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, was a key element in early clinching of the Democratic nomination. Gore claimed 148 of the state's 170 delegates.

One prominent Gore delegate and rising star in Ohio Democratic politics is Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman, who was elected in November 1999 with 60 percent of the vote. Coleman's win made him the first African-American mayor of Ohio's most populous city and ended three decades of Republican control.

The Democratic state Senate contingent is well-represented. State Senate Minority Leader Rhine McLin, the first black woman elected to the Ohio Senate, is a Gore delegate, as are state Sens. Ben Espy, Mark Mallory, Linda J. Furney and C.J. Prentiss.

William A. Lavelle, a Gore delegate and former state Democratic Party chairman, attended the 1960 convention in Los Angeles that nominated John F. Kennedy for president.

Bradley delegates include Carmen DeStefano, who has been active in the United Steelworkers' union; Wayne Jones, an Akron lawyer; Ruby Gilliam, the former state party vice chairman; and Melissa Long, a councilwoman from Cortland.

The Bradley group also includes 19-year-old Josephine Sittenfeld, the youngest member in the Ohio Democratic delegation. Sittenfeld attends Princeton University, Bradley's alma mater.

Ohio Democratic officials tout their delegation as one of the convention's most diverse. Prominent African-American delegates include Coleman, McLin, Espy, Mallory, Prentiss, state House Minority Leader Jack Ford and Columbus City Councilwoman Charleta B. Tavares.

Delegate Brian Shinn is president of Stonewall Democrats of Central Ohio, a gay rights organization.

"I'm not going to throw a few token members of various communities up on the stage and say 'OK, this is who we are,' " Leland said. "You go on the floor of the Democratic convention and you go into the Ohio delegation, you are going to see the kind of diversity that you would see if you walked into Cleveland or Columbus or Cincinnati or any of Ohio's cities or rural communities."

The delegation also has some ideological diversity. The state's most senior U.S. House Democrat is 11-term incumbent Tony P. Hall, an abortion opponent who successfully petitioned the Democratic platform committee in 1996 to temper its strong stance in favor of abortion rights by including a "conscience clause" that acknowledged the anti-abortion views held by some Democrats. Marcy Kaptur, the delegation's next most senior House Democrat, also has cast some anti-abortion votes.

While all of Ohio's Congress members are automatic convention delegates, the controversial and iconoclastic James A. Traficant Jr. may not attend - and might not be welcomed if he does.

Traficant, who is famous on Capitol Hill for his biting one-minute House floor speeches, survived a tough primary challenge this year from Democratic state Sen. Robert F. Hagan. During the primary campaign, Traficant - who has been in a long-running, bitter feud with federal judicial and tax agencies - announced that he was being investigated by federal authorities for alleged ties to organized crime.

Since the March 7 primary, Traficant has heightened tensions with his own party by voting with the Republicans on several key issues and declaring his intention to support House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., next January.

OHIO NOTABLES: State Democratic Party Chairman David Leland, the delegation chairman; Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman; Toledo Mayor Carleton S. Finkbeiner; state Senate Minority Leader Rhine McLin; state House Minority Leader Jack Ford; state Sens. Ben Espy and Mark Mallory.