Ohio primary plays key role in Democratic nomination

Ohio plays key role in Dem nomination

By Tim Jones and Howard Witt. Tim Jones reported from Canton, Ohio, and Howard Witt reported from Houston | TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENTS

March 4, 2008

CANTON, Ohio - They don't make presidents like they used to, certainly not in Ohio, which during an incredible 60-year stretch was the New York Yankees of presidential politics, sending seven of its home-grown sons to the White House.

That run of glory ended more than 80 years ago with Warren Harding, and Ohio, formerly a perpetual assembly line of coal, steel, glass, ball bearings and automobiles, no longer sets the political or economic agenda. But as the past two weeks of furious primary campaigning by Democratic candidates, their families and friends have shown, Ohio still flexes important electoral clout and will leave the light on for anyone willing to woo, to wow and to promise the moon.

Equally important clout will be on display Tuesday in Texas, where the campaigns of Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama barnstormed the state in advance of the presidential primary that, along with Ohio's, could speak loudly about who the party's nominee will be. Most polls from both states show the respective races to be tight.

Since the 1960s, the nation has sent three Texans to the White House, including the incumbent, George W. Bush.

So the Sun Belt and the Rust Belt each get a major say and the candidates paid last homage to them.

"I will not forget you," Clinton vowed at a town hall meeting late last week at the Ohio River speck called Hanging Rock, population 279.

Pledges like those and candidate appearances in terminally shrinking industrial centers like Youngstown, Cleveland, Canton and Toledo now help define one of Ohio's most important remaining production lines -- using its votes to decide who is going to the White House.

Republican race

The Republican race has been relegated almost to second-thought status, with the front-runner, Sen. John McCain, holding wide leads over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, even though a large number of conservatives in both states are concerned that McCain is too moderate.

McCain made news Monday when he said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he favored personal savings accounts in Social Security like those supported by President Bush. This was a departure from the stand he takes on his Web site, which favors personal savings accounts as a "supplement" to the existing Social Security system.

Turnout in both Ohio and Texas is forecast to be very heavy and perhaps record-setting, reflecting the political stakes involved and the keen interest of voters in this historic campaign.

As a consequence, more than 920,000 Texans turned out during early voting, more than doubling the early vote for the 2004 primary. Texas Secretary of State Phil Wilson predicted that a record 3.3 million voters would cast their ballots Tuesday, likely besting the previous presidential primary record of 2.7 million voters set in 1988.

Democrats outnumbered Republicans 3-1 in the early voting, and surveys suggested many of the Democrats were the kind of first-time voters the Obama campaign has boasted of attracting in previous states.

Voter expectations

In Ohio, in places like industrial Canton, the hometown of William McKinley, the nation's 25th president, voter expectations are tempered by the reality of manufacturing job cuts at Timken Roller Bearing Co. and, most recently, the closing of the Hoover Co. vacuum cleaner plant.

"I think their [candidates'] intentions are good, but there are so many things that need to be addressed -- jobs, pensions, health care, keeping the U.S. out of a recession," said Kathy Harman, a beauty store clerk in downtown Canton. "I don't know how many years it's going to take to change things."

Clinton and Obama have aggressively pursued the blue-collar vote in Ohio, which has lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000. The North American Free Trade Agreement has been blamed for some of those losses, although in some parts of the state NAFTA has been a boon, especially with farm exports.

"Part of Ohio's problem is that it doesn't embody a lot of things that are going right. It's a state in decline and it's paying a price for it," said Andrew Cayton, a history professor at Miami University and author of the book "Ohio: The History of a People."

At an event Sunday in the southeast Ohio town of Nelsonville, Dannielle Stanley-Reed urged Obama, "from one parent to another, to do all the things that you're saying you're going to do. ... People like me depend on someone like you."

Afterward, Stanley-Reed, a mother of two boys and homemaker from Canal Winchester, acknowledged that politicians have regularly broken promises made to this economically struggling region of the state.

"If history is reflective at all of what the future will be, then yes, everybody should be a little skeptical," Stanley-Reed said. "But I'm suspending my disbelief, I guess."

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tmjones@tribune.com

hwitt@tribune.com