One presidential debate over, and still undecided in Ohio
| Dover, Ohio
President Obama mentioned Cleveland; Mitt Romney cited Dayton. Both Ohio cities made it into the first national presidential debate Wednesday, and Maggie O鈥橳oole, an undecided voter from this small city in southeast Ohio, definitely noticed.聽
Not that she was all that pleased about it. 鈥淲ay to name-check a swing state,鈥� Ms. O鈥橳oole says sarcastically, settled into her living room sofa to watch Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney spar for 90 minutes over domestic policy on a University of Denver stage. 鈥淭hey have to prove they know it. It鈥檚 weird.鈥�
In the end, Ms. O'Toole 鈥� a 20-something marketing professional 鈥� remains on the fence, unswayed by either candidate's performance and still not ready to commit. She says she felt that Obama and Romney mainly revisited their familiar talking points, and she often found their words disappointing.
With 18 electoral votes, Ohio is an important battleground state in the November election, and both candidates are pushing to win over uncertain voters like O鈥橳oole who will likely determine who will win the state 鈥� and perhaps the whole election. A Friday rally for Obama at Cleveland State University will be his 22nd聽appearance in the state this year; Romney has parachuted into Ohio 16 times so far, most recently last week.
鈥淭he thin slice of that electorate is up for grabs in Ohio,鈥� says Paul Allen Beck, a political scientist at Ohio State University in Columbus. 鈥淯ndecideds are still in play. The debates will be important in moving them鈥� to make a final choice.
The latest Ohio polls show Obama with a single-digit edge over Romney 鈥� 49 to 45 percent, according to Public Policy Polling in Raleigh, N.C. 鈥� with 7 percent of state voters undecided. The survey was conducted Sept. 27-30 among 897 likely voters with a margin of error of 3.3 percent.
Though leading, Obama by no means has the state locked up: His approval ratings among Ohioans are split 48 to 49 percent, akin to Romney鈥檚 favorability ratings, 45 to 49 percent. The numbers are close enough that the outcome in Ohio remains unpredictable. 聽
O鈥橳oole, a marketing coordinator for an accounting firm and an MBA student at the University of Akron, considers herself a moderate Republican who swings to the left on social issues such as abortion rights and gay marriage. 鈥淚 have a number of friends who are gay and I want them to have the same opportunity I would have,鈥� she explains. But O'Toole is also worried about the state of the economy and how it has languished for the past four years. She comes from a family of lifelong Republicans and voted for GOP presidential nominee John McCain four years ago. In the 2008 primary, though, she voted Democratic, for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Watching Wednesday鈥檚 debate with a friend in her stylish, two-bedroom apartment while dining on carryout Chinese, O鈥橳oole says she is disappointed with how the candidates use competing statistics to hammer each other in assessing who is suffering most in the current economic climate.
鈥淭hey can take the exact same data to tell you two different things,鈥� she says. Romney is the most misleading, O鈥橳oole says, when he says the average middle-class family鈥檚 household income is down $4,000. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 a fair average.鈥� Also, how are you determining who is middle class, which is a huge debate the country has been having for many years,鈥� she says.
O'Toole also takes issue with Romney's statement that Obama has cut $716 billion out of Medicare for current beneficiaries. The entire discussion of entitlements, she says, is an exercise by both sides in 鈥減andering to elderly voters.鈥澛�
鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of frustrating because, regardless, my generation is going to pay for [the rising costs in health care for current retirees],鈥� she says. 鈥淥n some level it should cost something. The idea that a significant portion of our country is exempt from paying for the largest portion of our GDP is wrong.鈥�
O鈥橳oole recoils when Romney invokes 鈥渄eath panels鈥� when saying Obama鈥檚 health-care overhaul 鈥減uts in place an unelected board that's going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.鈥� For her, the discussion is too reminiscent of the incendiary rhetoric of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin four years ago.
鈥淭hat was her one contribution to the campaign, aside from the jokes,鈥� O'Toole says.聽
One challenge for Romney is that his message of an economy in dire straits is not so apparent in Ohio: State unemployment fell from 8.8 percent to 7.2 percent over the past year, and is now about a percentage point below the national average. More than 20,000 factory jobs have been added since January.
Even so, O鈥橳oole says people she knows 鈥渟till feel worse off than they were four years ago,鈥� because of shrinking retirement benefits and a general sense that economic recovery is not as swift as they once thought.
鈥淎 lot of people whose jobs tanked, they鈥檙e seeing recovery, but everybody who had anything like a pension took a hit and it鈥檚 not coming back,鈥� she says.
Another challenge for Romney in the Buckeye State is the automotive industry, which supports 1 in 8 jobs 鈥� about 80,000 total. He has long criticized Obama鈥檚 decision to use federal dollars to bail out General Motors and the Chrysler Group, which together employ about 13,000 people in Ohio.
鈥淥hio is an auto industry state, and [the bailout] is an issue that is more important to a lot of Ohioans than it is to people in most other states,鈥� says Mr. Beck of Ohio State. 鈥淭hat is a big advantage for Obama.鈥�
When the presidential debate turns to fiscal policy and the role of the federal government, O'Toole says she doesn鈥檛 believe Obama 鈥渉as the political will to make [spending] cuts鈥� needed to close the country鈥檚 yawning deficit.
鈥淗e will make the efficiency cuts, but will he actually cut social benefits or limit them in any way? I don鈥檛 believe he will do it,鈥� she says.
A CNN/ORC International poll released early Thursday found that 67 percent of registered voters who watched the debate said Romney fared better, compared with 25 percent for Obama.
O鈥橳oole is with the minority on this, saying Obama was the clear winner for his confidence and for seeming to have a better grasp of policies. Romney, she says, refused to drill down more deeply regarding his tax policy and health care: 鈥淯ltimately, Mitt Romney needs to give some of that information, and the longer that this goes on, the worse it looks for him.鈥澛�
Yet the debate she saw Wednesday was not enough for O'Toole to seal the deal with either candidate. She turned to the debate for a more substantial discussion about, not just the economy, but social issues, and what she heard were retooled versions of familiar stump speeches.
鈥淲e鈥檝e heard the same numbers a million times that haven鈥檛 been backed up. You can tell they hit their talking points, but it was nothing to shift the conversation,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 do agree a lot more with President Obama, but if neither of them have an economic solution, which it seems like they don鈥檛, will I vote for the guy with whom I agree with regarding gay rights or abortion or not? Mitt Romney鈥檚 not really giving me a reason to vote for him,鈥� she says.
With two more debates to go, what will it take for O鈥橳oole to make a decision?
鈥淢aybe just [for] one of them to terribly screw up and have a Sarah Palin moment where one of them proves to be inept,鈥� she says.
Beck says O鈥橳oole is typical of Republican-leaning women of the Millennial Generation who are 鈥渞eally turned off鈥� by current Republican Party policies on social issues, ranging from gay rights to contraception.
鈥淭he more professional women are really turned off by the Republican Party in general. These are voters who may go up to the very end,鈥� he says.
