This post is intended toward folks who are not familiar with Ohio and/or Ohio politics. This is something new for me since I've been writing about Ohio politics and other various stuff at nixguy.com for a long time now.

So let's see if I can do a quick survey of the political landscape in Ohio.
We'll start the clockwise and end up in the middle.

Cleveland is a rust-belt city. It had it's heyday, then the river caught on fire, among other things. For us down here in Southern Ohio, it's known as the "mistake on the lake". Seriously, I'm sure it has it's charms, but I'm told that culturally Cleveland is akin to the great midwest manufacturing centers of Detroit, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, etc. It's very democratic, very blue collar, very Democratic.

Southeast Ohio is sparsely populated and is culturally West Virginia. Appalachian, poor, rural. Socially conservative, but economically liberal. Ted Strickland's district. He's a pro-gun Democrat, which is about the only kind of Democrat these folks will elect.

Southwest Ohio is better off economically than the rest of the state. the business is more diverse. Cincinnati is a southern city in a northern state and culturally, could not be more different than Cleveland. Everything happens in Cincy ten years after it happens everywhere else, including race riots, although that was thirty years later. Cincinnati is culturally and economically conservative and votes Republican consistently.

Northwest Ohio is very, very flat. The rural parts are like Indiana, very conservative politically. Toledo is more blue collar, union, and manufacturing base and tends blue.

And then back to the middle. Columbus is the state capitol, is smack-dab in the middle of the state and what most folks not from here don't realize, is actually the most populous city in the state, the City of Columbus being larger in population than either Cincy or Cleveland. Metro area, not so much, but it's catching up. Columbus is very white collar, which helps Republicans, but also has lots of government workers, and Ohio State University helps tilt the city blue, along with a big urban Democratic core city. Which means that in most statewide races, Cincinnati and Cleveland tend to balance each other out and the swing area is Columbus.

Over the past few years the rapid growth of ring counties around Cincinnati and Cleveland have favored Republicans overwhelmingly. but this year there is a large Republican fatigue factor in play. The question is whether the traditional demographic advantage toward the GOP is enough this year.

For much more in depth on the culturally distinct areas of Ohio, I highly recommend the Cleveland Plain Dealers series on the subject.