Chillicothe, Ohio ? For Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, the battle for Ohio is being waged here, in the land of the undecideds.
The center of that universe in the Buckeye State is Chillocothe, a small town in central Ohio with a famously independent electorate that has picked a presidential winner all but four times in the past century.
Continue ReadingA potpourri of undecided voters in Tuesday?s Ohio primary ? one of the biggest on Super Tuesday just three days from now and perhaps the most important to the fate of the candidates ? crammed into a high-school gym Friday to hear Santorum speak.
Santorum is slightly ahead in the polls, and he and Romney are spending the better part of the weekend campaigning here. At 66 delegates, the state is a big delegate prize. But Santorum will almost definitely lose the argument that he can beat Romney with white, working-class voters if he loses here.
Among the 500 people who came to Santorum?s event Friday, their one commonality was a desire to see Barack Obama defeated.
There were the conservative housewives who said they would sit the election out if Romney were the nominee, and the engineer from the local paper mill who says his plant is being buried in environmental regulations.
The physician, who specializes in breast cancer, was moved by Santorum?s passion but worries about his electability. And the grandmother who prefers Santorum?s brand of conservatism, but would grudgingly settle for Romney.
?Oh, he?s a liberal,? said Ann Hoyt matter-of-factly of Romney.
Only 20,000 people live in this white, middle-class town ? but without fail, the presidential campaign always shows up on their doorstep. It?s where Obama opened his first 2012 Ohio field office this year. (Chillicothe voted for McCain in 2008 and hope to pick a winner this year.)
A number of people who showed up on a rainy day here seemed genuinely undecided four days before the primary.
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