Ohio airwaves are ad battleground

TOLEDO, Ohio - If Buckeye State voters are looking for evidence their state is the perennial battleground, all they need to do is turn on the TV.

In the span of 10 minutes, voters will hear that Sen. Barack Obama is a “celebrity” who would raise taxes and that Sen. John McCain is so out of touch he doesn’t know how many homes he owns, along with several more negative ads.

“I don’t think we’ve had any downtime from ads since before the primary,” said Kristina Schwarzkopf, a Toledo political coordinator for a teachers union.

The Democratic candidates flooded the airwaves with ads starting in February for the March 4 primary, and Mr. McCain has deployed TV resources here ever since, as both camps say Ohio is in play this fall.

President Bush narrowly won the state in 2004, which secured his re-election, and both parties say it’s a key indicator of how the Nov. 4 election turns out.

So can Mr. Obama, who lost the state’s primary by 9 percentage points to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, turn things around and win here?

Posed the question, Toledo writer Doug Crill pulled out a quarter and flipped it: Tails.

“I’m not sure if he can win. It all depends on how bad the housing crisis gets,” Mr. Crill, an Obama supporter, said before the Democrat held a small town-hall forum in a roof garden above a public library.

He said the candidate that is most credible on how to lure businesses to the troubled region will succeed.

Both Mr. Obama and his running mate, Sen Joseph R. Biden Jr., focused on the economy when speaking with a few hundred voters here.

“John McCain’s not listening to you, apparently,” Mr. Obama said. “If he was, he wouldn’t be saying that our economy has been making great progress.”

Continuing another common line of attack, the Illinois senator told the voters, “John McCain says the economy is fundamentally strong. He hasn’t been talking to the people here in Toledo.”

The audience, invited by the campaign for the small gathering, nodded along and some shouted, “That’s right!”

While Mr. McCain did say the economy fundamentals are “strong,” Mr. Obama does not cite the full context of the quote from the April television interview.

The Arizona Republican said during the Bloomberg interview that the job-creation figures allow one to argue “there’s been great progress.”

“But that’s … no comfort to families now that are facing these tremendous economic challenges,” he said.

Despite the McCain recognition of struggling Americans, Mr. Obama said his rival is “out of touch.”

“You don’t understand what people are going through, day in and day out,” Mr. Obama accused. “We do get it, we know what you’re going through, and we want to have a White House that is fighting for you every single day.”

Mr. Obama’s opponents, meanwhile, attack him as lacking specifics. He does offer specifics, such as ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and college funding for people who contribute national service, but often those don’t make the evening news.

The local NBC affiliate broadcasting in Marysville, Ohio, covered the Obama rally from the evening before, but didn’t outline any of the substance of the event.

Instead, the report showed the large crowd - at least 18,000 - and offered two clips of Mr. Obama speaking. In one, he was doing an Ohio chant and got laughs. In another, he was asking for a paramedic since one person had fainted.

During his town hall here, Mr. Obama warned voters not to believe “these ads the Republicans are putting up,” referring to a McCain ad citing a newspaper editorial that labeled his economic plan a “disaster.”

He said it is a distortion, and that his plan would offer three times more relief for “ordinary” Americans than Mr. McCain’s. The tax breaks would go to “not the wealthiest Americans, not Fortune 500 companies, but to you,” he said.

Ms. Schwarzkopf, who served as an alternate delegate at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, said she thinks Mr. Obama can win Ohio if he lays out “honest” plans for the economy.

“Obviously, you have to raise taxes,” she said. “He should be real and honest, because people know it won’t be easy, and when he makes it to the White House, he may not be able to do everything he’s promised.”

Mr. Biden told voters that Mr. McCain’s tax plan “leaves out 100 million families without a single red cent.”

One voter asked the Democratic ticket if they can win Ohio, given Sen. John Kerry’s loss to Mr. Bush in 2004.

People “see the reality of what’s happening to them,” when it comes to the economy, Mr. Biden said. “I think it’s going to be a different year because we’ve got a different guy as well.”

Mr. Obama said it is a “clear choice” this time around and said of voters, “If they’re happy with the way things have been going, they can afford to stay home or go vote for John McCain.”