George Will makes the case for a certain Democratic Buckeye:
In 2000, George W. Bush beat Al Gore 271 to 266 in electoral votes. Had Bush not carried Ohio, which he did with 50 percent of the popular vote, he would have lost. In 2004, he beat Kerry 286 to 251. Without the 20 electoral votes of Ohio, which Bush won 51 to 49 percent, Kerry would be president. By various scandals and ineptitudes, Ohio’s Republican Party made such a mess that in 2006 Sherrod Brown, a Democratic congressman, defeated an incumbent Republican senator, Mike DeWine, and another Democratic congressman, Ted Strickland, became governor.
Obama needs a running mate who is older than he is (46), who is not in Washington, who has executive experience and national security experience, who comes from a swing state and from a demographic cohort that Democratic presidential candidates have lost in every election since 1964 — white men. Strickland, who will be 67 in August, is the son of a steelworker and the first Democrat elected to Ohio’s governorship since 1986. He is an ordained Methodist minister who was born and raised in, and represented in Congress, conservative southeastern Appalachian Ohio. He has everything Obama needs — even an A rating from the National Rifle Association — except national security experience.
Clinton, too, needs Ohio, and owes Strickland, who helped her win the state’s primary. In politics, gratitude is optional but a pleasant surprise.
Would picking Strickland guarantee an Ohio win ? Not necessarily, but given how close the Buckeye State has been in the last two Presidential Elections, any little advantage could go a long way.
And without Ohio, I don’t see how McCain wins.
The political reality in which we live is that Ohio is one of the keys to the election. Ohio, along with the other battleground states, will determine the next President. The travesty is that the more than 2/3rds of the country that live in safe states are essentially disenfranchised. The system needs to be changed so that no voter, ex. a voter in Ohio, Florida, etc., is more important than any other. What we need is a direct national popular vote.
A national popular vote means that every vote is equal. No out of proportion concentration on Ohio or the handful of battleground states in a given election. The premise is simple and works for every other elected office, the candidate who receives the most votes wins the election.
The group National Popular Vote has a unique way to implement a national popular vote on a state-by-state basis. Maryland and New Jersey are already on board. I read about their proposal in the NY Times. Take a look at their website, http://www.nationalpopularvote.com.