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October 25, 2012

President Obama Ohio poster
President Obama Ohio campaign poster

Ohio Holds the Cards for
Obama Victory

by Barry Cooper
For Barack Obama, the presidential election could come down to just one state: Ohio.

Prognosticators are virtually unanimous in insisting that if President Obama wins Ohio, a key battleground state, he is assured of winning a second term in office. An upset by Romney in Ohio would be huge for him because the state has not voted for a loser in a presidential election since 1960.

Clearly, the Obama campaign is feeling the pressure. As of Oct. 23, the president and Vice President Joe Biden had made campaign trips to Ohio 10 times in 30 days. Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, made 21 visits during the same time span. The trips made Ohio the second-most contested state during the campaign, just behind another important swing state, Florida.

"Ohio is ground zero for the jobs debate," CNN’s Alex Castellanos said in a story published on CNN.com. He said that Ohio is "a microcosm of American swing voters: Reagan Democrats; suburban soccer moms; and even Up-Tinos, upwardly mobile Latinos, an increasingly important target for both parties."

Ohio has been ravaged by job losses in the auto industry, and through much of the race, President Obama has scored points in the state by expressing sympathy for Ohioans’ plight, while painting Romney as a heavy-handed ex-CEO who has always favored the rich and big business at the expense of the working middle class.

Unfortunately for the president, after once enjoying comfortable leads in the polls, he is scrambling in a race now considered a dead heat. If the president loses, pundits undoubtedly will point to his remarkably poor performance in the first debate on Oct. 3. The president performed so passively in the first debate that Romney all but had the stage to himself.

The result was a resounding victory for the Republicans, as it rallied Romney’s base and pumped new life into what was a sagging, dysfunctional Romney campaign. If the president had vigorously debated Romney in the first face-off, Romney might still be on the defensive as the race for the presidency enters its final days before the election on Nov. 6.

Romney has chipped away at Obama’s lead by softening his positions on key issues that affect women and middle-class voters. He has even survived his infamous “47 percent” comment when he told a group of donors that nearly half the country considered themselves victims and that he could not worry about them because they were going to vote for Obama anyway.

In the final two debates, the president was the aggressor. With the race hanging in the balance, he was forced to ignore the possibility of being perceived by some as “an angry black man” as he went after Romney on virtually every significant issue.

At times, especially in the final debate Oct. 22, Obama’s commentary was biting. In a discussion about the size of the United States Navy, President Obama blistered Romney when he said:

"You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed."

"We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go under water, nuclear submarines."

The comments made for such riveting video that the clip and the catchphrase “horses and bayonets” immediately went viral on the Internet.

“Now you have a choice,” President Obama said after the testy segment about war and foreign policy. “After a decade of war, I think you will agree we have to do some nation-building at home.”

The president and his supporters can only hope that Ohio -- and a majority of the  rest of the nation -- will decide that President Obama is the better choice to rebuild things on the home front.

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