Obama plans to target Republican strongholds

The Obama campaign needs to understand political realities in Ohio, Gov. Strickland said.

CLEVELAND (AP) — Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama plans to organize extensively in Ohio’s rural areas and small towns that have long been strongholds for Republican candidates in the key battleground state.

Though Obama will also concentrate on the state’s heavily Democratic urban areas as he looks to win the state’s votes in the November election, his campaign released a document Tuesday outlining the additional strategy.

President Bush won Ohio over Democrat John Kerry four years ago. Gov. Ted Strickland, who represented rural southeast Ohio in Congress for 12 years, said Obama’s statewide strategy could at least cut into any advantage his Republican opponent John McCain would have.

Strickland said during a conference call that he has advised Obama campaign officials to look at his own and Sen. Sherrod Brown’s recent victories as models. He said both had tactics to win votes all across Ohio.

“John Kerry won the major cities and metropolitan areas in our state more than he had hoped to win by. I mean, he did exceedingly well, and he lost the election because of his lack of support in small towns and rural Ohio,” Strickland said. “That every part of this state is being targeted means that Sen. Obama will not repeat the Kerry mistake.”

The Obama campaign’s Ohio strategy document titled “Change Begins in Ohio” includes formation of more than 1,200 neighborhood teams of volunteers,who will focus on a door-to-door conversational approach, said Aaron Pickrell, Obama campaign Ohio director.

Small towns like Middletown and Troy and rural areas like Perry County will have Obama campaign offices to help neighborhood teams, Pickrell said.

In all, 43 campaign offices statewide are either opened or planned.

McCain campaign spokesman Paul Lindsay said McCain expects to do well in parts of Ohio that have traditionally favored Republicans.

“John McCain knows how important Ohio is in this election, which is why he will continue traveling throughout the state to discuss his plans to create jobs and provide relief at the pump,” Lindsay said.

The Obama strategy makes sense, because a candidate should maximize votes where an opponent is strongest, said John Green, director of the University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

“Likewise, the McCain campaign will do what it can in the big cities,” he said.

But he pointed out the challenges Obama will face to win rural and small town votes as Strickland did in Ohio’s last election for governor.

“Those are areas where Democrats have not done very well. Ted Strickland is an exception. Whether Sen. Obama can do that in a presidential election remains to be seen. Rural and small town areas tend to be more conservative, and Sen. Obama is seen as very liberal,” Green said.

During the recent primary season, Strickland worked Ohio for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Sometimes he campaigned side by side for her with Bill Clinton. Now he vows to bring the same effort to the Obama campaign.

But Strickland said the Obama campaign would be wise to understand political realities in Ohio.

“Is Sen. Obama going to win every county and every region? Probably not,” he said. “But in some heavily Republican counties we can go from 29 percent to perhaps 38 percent, and in some counties we can go from 38 percent to 44 percent. So I’m confident that the strategy here is going to be effective. It’s an attempt to reach every voter in every part of Ohio.”

Strickland also said Tuesday that he’s been asked to speak about the economy at the upcoming Democratic National Convention.