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The Ohio unemployment rate crept up a notch last month to 5.9 percent -- a politically grim statistic that could hand that battleground state to the Democrats in November.

It's possible the Republicans can win the presidency without carrying Ohio (by taking Wisconsin and Minnesota), though it would be a steeper challenge. In 2000, President Bush narrowly won the state over Al Gore, and, despite the nearly 6 percent jobless rate, the race there is in a dead heat.

Still, the economy and jobs (not Vietnam or Iraq) remain the top issue for Ohio voters, senior Republican officials told me last week. John Kerry has been relentlessly attacking Mr. Bush on every visit on the outsourcing of jobs overseas, poorly paying jobs here at home and a weakening economy, with a lot of reinforcement from Democratic fat-cats who are bankrolling 527-funded ads across the state.

For his part, Mr. Kerry is demagoguing and distorting each one of these issues. Outsourcing, a small share of the labor market, is exaggerated. Jobs are being created at all income levels.

But enough unemployed people are hurting in Ohio to buy into Mr. Kerry's economic offensive and, frankly, Mr. Bush hasn't made a strong enough case to show why the Massachusetts liberal is wrong on all counts.

"This state is a toss-up," says Jim Trakas, Cuyahoga County Republican chairman. "The economy is the biggest issue by far and Kerry has beaten up Bush pretty badly here on off-shoring jobs, and [Mr. Bush] needs to address it."

Someone in the White House ought to talk to Heritage Foundation chief Ed Feulner, who ticks off facts that shoot holes in all of Mr. Kerry's economic charges.

What the president ought to be saying is " 'outsourcing' is actually far overshadowed by something we hear much less about, 'insourcing,' " Mr. Feulner says. "That's the process by which foreign firms hire workers here, including Honda workers in Ohio and BMW employees in South Carolina."

Feulner cites a recent study by the Organization for International Investment, which found 6.4 million jobs in the United States in which the employer is a foreign company.

"The study also showed insourced jobs are growing at an annual rate of 5.5 percent, while manufacturing outsourced jobs grew at an annual rate of only 1.5 percent," he said. In other words, "more companies are moving jobs here than are shipping them elsewhere."