Quotes of the Day

On a sweltering mid-June afternoon, Barack Obama stood at a construction site in Columbus to tout the 10,000th project funded by his economic-stimulus plan. But to Ohio Democrats, another number was just as important: it was Obama's seventh visit to their state.

It's not the scenery that keeps the President coming back. It's the stakes — for both Obama and his party — in two closely watched races this fall. Ohio's Democratic governor, Ted Strickland, and his lieutenant governor, Lee Fisher, who is the party's U.S. Senate nominee, are facing what ought to be brutal election fights. The Strickland-Fisher administration has presided over the loss of 400,000 jobs here since 2007. Ohio's unemployment, at 10.5%, runs higher than the national average. And Fisher has the dubious honor of being the state's economic-development director, which these days is like being BP's top environmental executive.

Yet early polls show that both Strickland and Fisher actually stand a chance in November. How is that possible? However frustrated with Democrats voters are right now, they're still dubious about a GOP brand that's skunky from the Bush years. A July TIME poll shows that likely voters nationwide are no more inclined to vote Republican than Democratic in November's congressional elections.

And in Ohio, even wounded Democrats fare all right when matched up with individual Republicans lugging politically toxic baggage. "This cannot be an up or down vote on Barack Obama or the Democrats or the economy," says a Democratic Party strategist. "It has to be a contrast."

That said, Ohio's governor doesn't have much to brag about. Strickland took office in 2007 promising to expand Ohio's economy, but it's been mostly downhill since. Still, Strickland, 68, hails signs of recovery: Ohio added almost 50,000 jobs this spring. "There is a difference now. There is less doom and gloom, and there is more hope," he explains. But the governor admits the obvious: "It's going to take some time."

And that's not a luxury Strickland can afford now that he's facing a seasoned opponent: John Kasich, a former Republican Congressman known in the 1990s as one of Washington's toughest budget hawks. Fiscal discipline is just the theme Kasich hopes will define the race. The Republican Governors Association set the tone in June with a TV ad featuring a pair of hardened construction workers who call Strickland "a bad governor" who "blames everyone else" for Ohio's huge job losses.

The ad doesn't mention Kasich, so Strickland tries to do so at every turn. "The question is not Ted Strickland against the economy," the governor says. "It's Ted Strickland against John Kasich." There's a reason for that. The son of a steelworker from an Appalachian Ohio town, Strickland comes from origins that are wholesome (Roy Rogers grew up nearby) and humble (his family briefly slept in a chicken coop after a fire). He's also a former Methodist minister and an ex-Congressman with a culturally moderate record that appeals beyond cities such as Cleveland and Columbus. (He's been endorsed by the National Rifle Association.) "I like to talk about the difference between Ohio values and Wall Street values," Strickland says.

That's a not-so-veiled attack on Kasich. During the 18 years he represented the Columbus area in Washington, Kasich, 58, cut a profile as a financially conservative working-class hero. He has his own up-by-his-bootstraps story, but soon after leaving Congress, Kasich took a job as a managing director at the ill-fated banking giant Lehman Brothers. And Democrats are making sure voters see him as a Wall Street Republican. "John Kasich got rich while Ohio seniors lost millions," declares an ad funded by a liberal independent group. Strickland has also hit Kasich for arranging meetings between Ohio pension officials and Lehman staffers. (Those meetings did not yield investments, but state public-pension funds did lose hundreds of millions through Lehman.)

Kasich insists the attacks are both unfair and bound to fail. "I was one managing director in a company of 30,000 employees, and I ran a two-man office in Ohio," he protests. "Frankly, what we need more of are politicians who understand how to create jobs." But Kasich was concerned enough to air a response ad of his own: "I didn't run Lehman Brothers," he tells the camera.

It's a similar story in the race to succeed the retiring Ohio Republican Senator George Voinovich. In Lee Fisher, 58, Democrats have a candidate who is no one's idea of a star — a career politician who lacks Strickland's folksy touch. Nor has Fisher proved much of a fundraiser in this race. His Republican opponent, former GOP Congressman and Bush Administration official Rob Portman, had nearly $9 million on hand (to Fisher's $1.3 million) as of June 30. Some Washington Democrats call Fisher the kind of candidate they would typically consign to the can't-win bin.

But for the moment, they're still giving Fisher short odds. One reason is that Portman, like Kasich, presents a wide target for Democratic counterattacks on economic themes. True, Portman, 54, is one of Ohio's most respected political figures, known for an even temperament and a sharp mind. But after 12 years of representing Cincinnati in the House, he served as George W. Bush's Trade Representative and then Budget Director. In Fisher's eager telling, then, Portman is a Washington insider and Bush sidekick who promoted Bush's free-trade policies — particularly those involving U.S. steel trade with China — that killed Ohio jobs. Portman calls those charges off base, pointing to cases he filed with the World Trade Organization against Chinese trade practices. Promoting his jobs plan, he accuses Fisher of harping on the past to divert attention from the state's dismal economy. "The message is pretty clear: if you're happy with the status quo, then I'm probably not your candidate," Portman says. His lopsided financial advantage may yet swamp Fisher (though union spending will narrow that gap). But for now, Democrats are thankful for such an easy chance to start a conversation about Bush's economic legacy.

Economics, strictly speaking, isn't the only issue here. Democrats pilloried Kasich for his indifferent attitude toward whether NBA megastar LeBron James would leave the Cleveland Cavaliers. ("We've lost 400,000 jobs out here, and the last guy I worry about is LeBron James," Kasich huffed in a radio interview. Not that Strickland's cameo in a Web video urging LeBron to stay managed to keep him from going to Miami.) After a June rally in Lima, meanwhile, a local TV reporter confronted Strickland with another pressing question: What was he doing about the state's bedbug epidemic? (Yes, bedbugs.)

But even if the issues can get picayune, these races have broad political importance. Outside groups are expected to spend millions to sway voters, to say nothing of the cash both parties are committing. Partly, that is a warm-up as they build their ground games for the next presidential election. Ohio, after all, remains the grand prize of presidential politics. Obama can lose every red state he turned blue in 2008 and still win re-election as long as he holds on to the Buckeye State. And that will be far easier with a Democrat in the governor's mansion. "It's more likely that Obama will win Ohio if I'm re-elected," Strickland says.

That's why the President has already scheduled another trip to Ohio, in mid-August. However much Democrats say the races here are about the past, they are also about Obama's future.

• Michael Crowley
• Ohio has lost 400,000 jobs since 2007, but Democratic candidates running for both governor and senator actually stand a chance in November In