Well, cross off Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland from Obama’s potential VP list, as he has ruled out running in the most unambiguous terms. For a variety of reasons, I always thought he was an unlikely pick. Strickland on Obama’s chances in Ohio:
When asked to rank the degree of difficulty of Obama carrying Ohio, Strickland says: “I would say somewhere around 5 in a scale of 1 to 10. I think it’s, I just think it’s a challenge because of the nature of our state.”
Ohio as a true tossup sounds about right at this stage. As in Virginia, the Ohio GOP has made a terrible mess of its own house, and that combined with the perenially weak Ohio economy has given Democrats an opportunity in the state. But McCain’s relatively popular in Ohio, and Obama got crushed there in the primaries. Much will turn on turnout, as the polls consistently show a McCain lead among likely voters, but a strong Obama position in polls of all registered voters. (One wild card: Bush won an unusually high proportion of African-American voters in Ohio in 2004 – 16% compared to 9% in 2000 – due perhaps to the same-sex marriage ballot initiative and the support of Ken Blackwell; that won’t happen against Obama).
McCain will lose if he doesn’t win Ohio…so it is territory where Dems will prepare to lose, but if they win it, there is no real electoral map that works for McCain, particularly if Obama wins Virginia, which I think will happen. Obama wants McCain having to go to Ohio to campaign, since it means resources won’t go to his ground game elsewhere. Dems opening up the West in the 50 state strategy is really putting pressure on the R’s where they never had to campaign much before.