Ohio: The Many Faces Of The Kingmaker State

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ohio is George Bush's make-or-break state. No Republican has won the presidency without winning Ohio -- ever. Knowing that history, John F. Kerry has invested unprecedented time and money to win this crucial state.

It was here that Senator Kerry came to deliver his midnight response to George Bush's acceptance speech on Sept. 2. Between now and voting day, Kerry will spend US$7-million to advertise in Ohio, more than he intends to spend in any state except Florida.

The so-called independent anti-Bush groups -- MoveOn.org, Americans Coming Together and so on -- have likewise made Ohio their highest priority: ACT held its August national convention here in Cleveland. Bruce Springsteen will give a free concert here to mobilize anti-Bush voters.

Ohio ought to have been promising territory for the Democrats. Only Michigan has been harder hit by the manufacturing recession of the past four years. Nearly 252,000 jobs -- including 193,000 manufacturing jobs -- have been lost in Ohio since the summer of 2000. Ohio's unemployment rate is 5.9%; it was only 3.9% when George Bush took office. More than one-third the population of Cleveland now lives in poverty, the highest rate of poverty for any large U.S. city.

And yet the most recent polls in Ohio all give President Bush a lead over Sen. Kerry of anywhere from two to four points -- and up to nine points among those people most likely to vote. It seems more and more probable that Ohio's 20 electoral votes will bulk up President Bush's total on Nov. 2.

Three broad trends are driving Bush's surge.

* Despite all that talk about Democratic unity, Bush is more popular among Republicans than Kerry is among Democrats: 90% of Republicans support him; only 80% of Democrats say they intend to vote for Kerry.

* The Republican convention won over millions of female voters. Before the convention, Kerry had a seven point lead among women; Bush now leads among women by five points.

* Bush has established himself as the more decisive and principled candidate. In Newsweek's most recent poll, 62% of voters say that George Bush has strong leadership qualities, only 50% say that about John Kerry; 54% trust George Bush in an international crisis, while only 46% say they would trust John Kerry.

These broad national trends are changing the election here in Ohio, too. Ohio is a state of five major regions. Northeastern Ohio -- the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County -- depends heavily on old-line industries like steel and automobiles. It is here that the job losses and the Democratic votes are concentrated. (It is also the home of Dennis Kucinich, the ultra-left congressman who finished last in the 2004 Democratic presidential race.) Kerry will certainly win this corner of the state -- but not by enough to overcome his problems everywhere else.

Southeastern Ohio belongs to Appalachia, a region that is economically distressed but culturally conservative. Kerry's cautious economic policies have not excited voters here. Instead they are voting their consciences on social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage -- and their traditional hawkishness on terrorism and Iraq.

Central Ohio, the area around the state capital, Columbus, is a thriving participant in the new economy. This is the home of Leslie Wexner, the retailing genius who created The Limited and Victoria's Secret; it is home too to Ohio State University and the university's technology spinoffs. Bush's social issues do not play especially well here -- but his tax-cutting pro-business economic policies do.

Western Ohio is farm country. President Bush has campaigned here hard and often. Voters here respond to Bush's down-home personality, and are correspondingly repelled by Kerry's exotic voice and manner. Not many Allen County farmers wind surf; not many own $8,000 bikes. At the same time, these all-American people earn their livings by selling grain and soybeans to the global market: Kerry's protectionism threatens their livelihoods; George Bush's vigorous advocacy of trade with China delights them. It probably also does not hurt that Bush in 2002 signed the most lavish farm bill since the middle 1980s.

Southwestern Ohio and metropolitan Cincinnati feel like Kentucky and Tennessee. This is a region full of hunters, gun owners and citizen-soldiers like Specialist James Ross -- a 19-year-old sentry who saved the lives of 200 American soldiers by spotting and destroying a car bomb in December, 2003. Ross lived over the Ohio river in Boone County, Ky., but his story was told to the world by the local television station, Cincinatti's WKRC Channel 12. These are the voters brought home by Zell Miller's speech to the Republican convention in New York.

In each of these five regions, the Bush-Cheney campaign speaks in the local accent. The campaign has recruited 58,000 volunteers inside Ohio to visit voters and place phone calls. The Kerry campaign has been much less successful: It has had to rely on out-of-state phonebanks staffed by people like Mark Gabriele, a graduate student at the University of California who is using his own unlimited weekend calling minutes to place phone calls. "You don't have to live in Ohio to help turn it blue," he told the Columbus Dispatch. Maybe not, the Bush campaign answers -- but it sure helps.

George Bush gets little respect from the national media. But in this election, he's had a job to do, and he has successfully done it. John Kerry, by contrast, has failed to articulate a compelling message, failed to build an effective organization, failed to exploit the incumbent's weaknesses and failed to maximize his own strengths. The bill for those failures comes due in only 49 days.