McCain's Challenge In "Must-Win" Ohio
For the series, "Final Battleground," the CBS Evening News is traveling to three key areas of the country - the South, the Midwest and the West - to hone in on the states that will decide this presidential election. Ohio is one state that could swing toward either Barack Obama or John McCain, CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield reports.
Nobody has to spell it out for John McCain. Like every other Republican nominee in history, if he does not win Ohio, he won't win the White House, Greenfield reports.
And the terrain is daunting: with more than 88 offices throughout the Buckeye state - more than double that of McCain - and with more than 10,000 volunteers, Obama's ground game has neutralized the Republican operation that gave President Bush his narrow victory there four years ago.
"What's significant compared to '04 is that the Democrats and the Obama campaign are making a run at the collar counties. They were ignored by, largely ignored by, Kerry in 2004," said Mark Naymik of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
The "collar counties" are ones surrounding large cities like Cleveland.
That city and Columbus will likely generate huge majorities for Obama; Cincinnati, and Southern Ohio will likely be big for McCain. So the key are those collar counties - like Lake County, narrowly won by Mr. Bush four years ago.
John McCain's fate in Ohio may come down to places like Painesville, some 30 miles northwest of Cleveland. Without big majorities among working and middle-class whites in places like these, McCain simply cannot win the state.
"We're going to have to do a little bit stronger here in Lake County as other collar counties," said Lake County GOP chair Dale Fellows. "That's where the battleground is going to be to offset what we know we're going to lose in the urban counties."
Fellows says that apart from taxes and McCain's personal story, the message is to raise doubts about Obama - as with the "robocalls" that link Obama to Bill Ayers.
"What Sen. Obama represents is so far out of the mainstream but he's been able to paint himself more into the mainstream. What we're trying to do is just say, here's really who Barack Obama is," Fellows said.
Tim Hagan a 40-year veteran of Ohio Democratic politics, says there's a racial undertone to "out-of-the-mainstream" message - but it is complex.Ways To Win
Calculate paths to the presidency with our electoral vote map.
"They're making a case, not in a boldness of saying, you know, 'don't vote for the black guy,' they're making the case of saying, 'vote for one of your own.' The subtlety of it is simply this: He's not like us."
A McCain victory in Ohio will not be enough to save his campaign, but it is an absolute necessity for his presidential hopes.