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Both McCain and Obama expected hand-to-hand combat in Ohio as the 2008 campaign drew to a close. But Hamilton County, which includes and surrounds Cincinnati, was never in anyone's battle plan. Over the past 100 years, its voters have backed the Democratic presidential candidate only four times. The county has been such unfriendly territory for Democrats that former Ohio governor John Gilligan, a Cincinnati native, once famously remarked that, "they hunt Democrats with dogs for sport in Hamilton County...
This year, however, Hamilton is up for grabs. Nestled in the southwestern corner of Ohio, where table-flat corn and wheat fields abruptly give way to hilltops, Cincinnati overlooks Kentucky from its perch above the Ohio River. "It's really two cities," says Dorothy Weil, 78, whose husband chaired the local Democratic Party two decades ago, "the East and the West." Culturally and politically, the West Side closely resembles its Kentucky neighbors and is dotted with working-class Catholic towns where people still place one another by asking which parochial high school they attended. Across town is the East Side...
...last time both parties had a competitive primary, 115,300 voters participated on the GOP side, while only 54,600 cast votes for Democrats. This year the numbers are flipped: 83,400 voted for Republican candidates, and nearly 165,000 participated in the Democratic primary. Although Hillary Clinton won Ohio easily, Obama's best showing statewide came in Hamilton, where he won 63% of the vote. "We have a reservoir of support there," says Isaac Baker, Obama's Ohio spokesman...
...video on Economy and Politics in Rural Ohio. See pictures of John McCain's final push. See pictures of Barack Obama's home stretch...
Much of that reservoir is African American. While Bush chipped into Ohio's black vote in 2004, the Obama campaign expects to see black support above 90%. In a county like Hamilton, which is one-quarter African American, that enthusiasm could provide the margin of victory. Obama's army has blanketed the county with signs and posters. Capitalizing on Ohio's early-voting law, it has organized van rides to shuttle students, low-income residents and even homeless voters to the early polling station downtown. One Obama aide says the campaign needs socially conservative whites on the East Side...