There's been some discussion lately by my brother Ethan and David Broder of the Washington Post about the change in electoral attitude in rural Ohio. This is a fascinating change, as Ethan mentions, compared to the way we remember it growing up.
So the big question is... with all this pro-Obama sound & fury in Wayne County, (and one assumes, elswhere in rural Ohio,) is it enough to overcome the 11,000-12,000 vote deficit in the county from the last two presidental elections in the county. Of the 70,000+ registered voters in Wayne County fewer than 40,000 voted in 2006, so I'll interpolate (swag) that Bush won with no less than 60% of the vote in 2004.
Of course, Obama doesn't have to take Wayne County, but there are deficits like this all over rural Ohio that are key to winning the state. To me, it seems unlikely that the vote will swing enough to the Democratic side here in Columbus or in the other liberal areas of the state to give Ohio to Obama. I made some rash predictions in 2004: when looking at the early returns maps I saw only rural Ohio reporting and Bush with a strong lead, I assumed Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, and Youngstown would swing the state to Kerry, but the margin was not wide enough, (these were the areas short on voting machines and long on lines at the polls, too, but that's another issue.) Bush's margin in 2004 was 118,775, so that's fewer than 1400 per county (Wow, that was really close... vote!)
With that number in mind, and the anecdotal evidence from Wooster, sounds pretty good for Obama, huh?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think it's going to be close in Ohio, partially because of icky Appalachin anti-Obama sentiment, and partially because, as you noted, it really is a couple of states in one. Take away the 3Cs, and we're basically a more conservative combination of Indiana and West Virgina. That's tough to overcome even when the candidate isn't threatening to a certain sad lot of people.
ReplyDelete