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U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio May 5, 2012. President Obama officially kicked off his reelection campaign today with visits to Ohio and Virginia. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

(Reuters) – Last week,

President Barack Obama launched his re-election campaign in the university town of Columbus, Ohio. His

hopes for a second term, however, likely lie not with the student-heavy crowd but in places like this

small city, an hour’s drive south.

Anchored by a paper mill in

the foothills of Appalachia, Chillicothe has a knack for picking presidents. It is the seat of Ross

County, which has sided with the winning presidential candidate in all but four elections since

1908.

One of the exceptions was in 2008, when the county backed Republican John McCain.

Chillicothe, however, went for Obama.

Both parties see politically divided Ohio as perhaps the

decisive state in the presidential race between Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. So Chillicothe and

neighboring towns will have an outsized say in determining the future occupant of the Oval

Office.

In November, the Obama campaign chose this city of 20,000 as the site of his first

campaign office in Ohio.

On a recent day the office was nearly empty. As the November 6 election

nears, it will fill with workers tasked with persuading this outpost of Democratic voters, surrounded

by conservative neighbors, to vote for Obama again.

How Chillicothe feels about the economy will

go a long way toward determining Obama’s fate in Ohio, where recent polls indicate Obama and Romney

are virtually tied.

While Ohio’s unemployment rate has dipped below the national average of 8.1

percent, Ross County’s remains above it, ending March at 9.3 percent.

During 2009, Obama’s

first year in office, nearly 500 Chillicothe homeowners faced foreclosure, an all-time high.

But

there are hints of recovery in Chillicothe.

“Time may be right to sell home,” read a recent

headline in the local newspaper, noting a jump in sale prices.

Home to manufacturing plants, a

large local healthcare provider, two state prisons and long stretches of retail stores, the Chillicothe

area has a broader employment base than many other Ohio communities that have been struck by the

recession.

Even when jobs are hard to come by, Chillicothe knows when work is being done. The

paper plant’s smoke stack, which looms over town, sends a strong smell of sulfur into the

air.

Locals call it “the smell of money.”

‘MAD AT OBAMA’

Far from Democratic

strongholds such as Cleveland in northeast Ohio, this working-class, mostly white community is not

particularly friendly terrain for Obama.

It has not been since well before he took office. In

the 2008 primary, nearly three times as many Ross County voters turned out for Obama’s Democratic

rival, Hillary Clinton.

Susie Jones, 66, who voted for Obama in 2008 and plans to vote for him

again this year, opened a gift shop on Main Street five years ago. She said Obama’s 3 1/2 years in

office have not improved his standing with Chillicothe residents.

“A lot of people are mad at

Obama. They walk into the store and just say, ‘Oh, Obama,'” Jones said with mock disgust. “They blame

everything on him. I am amazed at the extent of the dislike for him, so I just keep my mouth

shut.”

A grandmother who has lived in Chillicothe for 37 years, Jones’s weather-vane voting

record helps explain how her home has become a bellwether for presidential politics.

In the

1990s, Jones said she supported Democrat Bill Clinton. In the next decade, she said, she twice voted

for Republican George W. Bush.

Now she calls herself an “Obama fan,” having parted with the

Republican Party over social issues and the environment.

OBAMA’S EARLY EDGE

As much as

Obama needs to do well here, Romney does, too.

No Republican has won the White House without

winning Ohio. With Obama poised to remain strong in urban areas, Romney will need to improve upon

McCain’s showing in places such as Ross County.

Judging from Ohio’s March 6 Republican

primary, Romney may have problems improving on McCain’s result. Ross County looks little like the

suburbs where Romney did well in his party’s primary. After a visit here in March, conservative

Republican Rick Santorum beat Romney handily.

Republicans acknowledge that Romney trails Obama

when it comes to organizing voters throughout Ohio.

“There is no doubt their campaign is ahead

of us,” said Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

The RNC hopes

to benefit from Republican John Kasich’s successful campaign for Ohio governor in 2010.

In a

poll released by Quinnipiac University on Thursday, Obama’s lead over Romney was 1 point, within the

poll’s margin of error.

That was before Obama announced his support this week for same-sex

marriage, which Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson said could turn off some Democratic groups such as the

working-class white voters in Chillicothe.

A REPUBLICAN MAYOR

In 2008, Obama beat McCain

by 311 votes out of the 9,989 cast in Chillicothe, while losing Ross County by 2,200 votes.

Two

years later, Ted Strickland, a Democrat, carried Ross County by 700 votes over Kasich, a

Republican.

Notably, in 2010, Ross County voted in favor of a state proposal to “preserve the

freedom of Ohioans to choose their health care,” seen as a symbolic rebuke to the cornerstone of

Obama’s legislative agenda.

In November, Chillicothe elected a Republican mayor for the first

time in 27 years – a good omen, local Republicans say.

The new mayor, Jack Everson, 57, a

manufacturing consultant, is fluent in the arguments of Obama’s harshest critics.

“I was hoping

Obama would win just so America would get a taste of what America would look like as a socialist

state,” Everson said.

Armed with a pamphlet touting Obama’s jobs record, Kathryn River has

canvassed the city, trying to combat views such as her mayor’s.

“We’re far away from the big

cities and big government money,” said River, 25, who works at her parents’ restaurant. “We need laws

and people in place to make life easier for us.”

NO ‘FUZZY FEELING’

Romney’s most

recent stop in Ohio included a visit to a factory in Cleveland. He has not visited

Chillicothe.

Clinton came here twice during his presidency. Bush hosted a rally in 2004. Obama

delivered a speech from the courthouse steps a few weeks before the 2008 election. McCain came,

too.

In Chillicothe, the former Massachusetts governor is a distant figure.

“I don’t

know that much about Romney,” said Jim Doersam, 70, a Republican who runs Petron Oil, a fuel provider

in southern Ohio. “I don’t have that fuzzy feeling about him at this point.”

With the economy

struggling, Democrats are working to prevent Romney from building up goodwill in the

area.

Strickland, an Obama campaign co-chair who represented parts of Ross County while in

Congress, said that Romney’s personal fortune, which has included millions placed in tax-friendly

foreign banks, put the former private equity executive a world apart from blue-collar

Ohio.

“It’s a long way from Chillicothe to the Cayman Islands,” he said.

(Additional

reporting by Deborah

Charles; Editing by David

Lindsey; Desking by Vicki Allen)

 

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