In a Tactical Test, Romney Stakes Hopes on Ohio
nytimes.com/2012/09/02/us/politics/in-a-tactical-test-mitt-romney-stakes-hopes-on-ohio.html
nytimes The New York Times
For Mitt Romney, Ohio Remains a Vital Hurdlehttp://t.co/hCW5VlY0In a Tactical Test, Romney Stakes Hopes on Ohio
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Mitt and Ann Romney entering a rally on Saturday at Union Terminal in Cincinnati. Midterm gains in Ohio raised Republican hopes for retaking the state in the 2012 presidential election.
By JIM RUTENBERG and JEFF ZELENY
Published: September 1, 2012
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CINCINNATI — Fresh off his nominating convention, Mitt Romney is cranking up a well-financed political machine that will now bring its full force to bear on President Obama with a hailstorm of ads and nonstop campaigning.
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Damon Winter/The New York Times
Mitt Romney and his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, campaigning on Friday at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport in Florida. Both were headed to Ohio for the Labor Day weekend.
But little of it may matter if Mr. Romney cannot win here in Ohio, where a loss would severely narrow his path to the White House.
That explains why the state has seen more presidential campaign ads than any other in the last three months, why it has assumed such a prominent place in the legal battles over voting rules, and why Mr. Romney, Mr. Obama and their running mates campaigned here over the Labor Day weekend.
“It’s possible to win without Ohio,” Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, the chairman of the Romney campaign here, said in an interview. “But I wouldn’t want to risk it.”
Mr. Portman and John A. Boehner, the speaker of the House, joined Mr. Romney and thousands of cheering supporters at Union Terminal here on Saturday for a rally that had the distinct high energy of a newly engaged general election campaign. Reprising a theme from his convention speech, that Mr. Obama had failed to live up to sky-high promises, Mr. Romney drew laughs from the crowd by saying, “He famously said that he was going to slow the rise of the oceans,” then thundering, “Our promise to you is this: we’re going to help the American people.”
Mr. Romney is running closely with Mr. Obama in most national polls, but the story is different in several states that will decide the race for the necessary 270 electoral votes. Many polls in those states show Mr. Obama holding an advantage over Mr. Romney as the Democrats prepare to open their convention on Tuesday in Charlotte, N.C. In a Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News pollreleased just over a week ago, Mr. Obama had a six-point advantage over Mr. Romney in Ohio for the second month in a row.
To give a sense of Mr. Romney’s challenge: he could win Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Virginia — all carried by Mr. Obama in 2008 — and still fall short without Ohio and its 18 electoral votes.
The state, which has been doing better than the nation as a whole by some economic measures, will test whether Mr. Obama can successfully point to selective improvements in the economy, and whether Mr. Romney can make the case that with a Republican governor, in this instance John R. Kasich, conservative policies like reductions in government spending are already promoting job growth.
Democratic ads attacking Mr. Romney’s refusal to release more tax returns and accusing him of presiding over the outsourcing of jobs while at Bain Capital have made it more difficult to gain the trust of voters here, his advisers said. The president has an edge of 18 percentage points over Mr. Romney in Ohio when voters are asked who cares more about their problems, according to the Quinnipiac/Times/CBS poll.
