The pulse

Brandweek, Sept 18, 2000 by Alec Foege

Dayton, Ohio, is chock-full of swing voters, and the campaigns are spending big to woo them. So What do they think?

Deborah Bianchi cares deeply about the moral fiber of the next president. The 32-year-old homemaker from the Dayton, Ohio, suburb of Bellebrook says she's in the market for something different this November. Sitting with her four young children at a radio-station-sponsored picnic in downtown Dayton one late-summer day, she says she dislikes negative campaigning and that she wants honesty back in the White House.

"I think we need a change," Bianchi says, taking a bite of cheeseburger. "I haven't liked the Clinton administration."

Brushing blond-streaked strands from her face, Bianchi speaks with conviction about what she looks for in a candidate. "For me, one of the big issues is right to life," she says, her voice cracking with emotion.

Consequently, she expects to pull the lever for Texas Gov. George W. Bush on election day. "He said during the Republican convention that he would ban partial-birth abortions, and I'm against them, so I really hope he can do that."

Bianchi, whose husband is an Internet-site designer, is also concerned about the failing public-education system and senses that Al Gore doesn't care enough to improve it. "I don't think he comes across as generally liking people, actually," she says. "I watched his convention, and he gave a good speech, but he tried to rush it. He was talking fast. I don't know, there's something about him that I don't trust."

Twenty yards away, planted on a park bench, Antonio Green, 31, a Dayton resident and owner of a small manufacturing business, also worries about education, as well as other hot-button issues like Social Security and taxes. That's why he's voting for the other guy. "Al Gore presents an impression that he's more for families," says Green, a married father of one daughter. "lie's currently trying to get more funding for schools, he's trying to rebuild our classrooms--literally make it more comfortable for children while they're in school."

Green, who works nights as a freight repackager at Emory Worldwide to help pay the bills while building his business, watched Gore during the Democratic convention and liked what he saw. "Gore did pretty well," he says. "My impression is he's going to move the country in the right direction, such as Bill Clinton is doing."

No wonder Ohio is prized as a national bellwether. Walk in any direction and you're as likely to bump into a Republican as a Democrat, both with pretty typical political opinions. In 23 of the last 25 presidential elections, the Buckeye State voted the same way as the nation. It's also chock-full of swing voters, especially coveted in a year when both sides predict a close race in which the independently minded may decide the winner.

"In Ohio, there is a broad middle that votes in a presidential year," says Jim Bebbington, a Dayton Daily News political reporter. "That middle is not very active in politics, does not feel a great affiliation for party labels and is not attracted by an extreme political view."

Perhaps that's why Ohio--with as many as 1 million swing voters up for grabs--has received almost $18 million in advertising from the major parties during the last decade, more than any other state except delegate-rich California, according to figures provided by the nonpartisan Campaign Study Group.

By election day, Bush and Gore are expected to spend more than $4 million combined on advertising in Dayton, a medium-size Midwestern city of 182,000. Tucked into southwestern Ohio between Cincinnati and Columbus, it's the hub of the nation's 53rd-largest television market.

"The national parties have been spending pretty heavily here since June," says Darryl Griffin, sales manager at CBS affiliate WHIO-TV, the area's dominant station.

What better vantage point, then, from which to observe the battle of the national media campaigns?

Montgomery County (population: 561,000) has nearly equal numbers of registered Republicans (60,511) and Democrats (57,513). Independents, however, are the county's largest block with 170,223, accounting for nearly 60 percent of voters. Like every Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Bill Clinton lost in 1992 in the Dayton market--which includes the 11 surrounding counties-- though he bagged it in 1996 by a slim margin. This year, neither party is taking Dayton for granted.

"The Democrats see optimism in Clinton's performance in 1996, and the Republicans are looking to retake it," says Eric Rademacher, co-director of the University of Cincinnati's nonpartisan Ohio Poll.

"Montgomery County and Dayton are what I consider a Democratic-leaning swing community, as opposed to Columbus, which is a Republican-leaning swing community," observes Ohio Democratic Chairman David J. Leland. "Everything being equal, it will support Democrats, but we have to put some time into it."

Gore and Bush have made Ohio a priority on the campaign trail. Both men have visited the state more than 10 times so far in 2000. Dayton alone has played host to at least two visits from each of the contenders. Such visits have received heavy play on local newscasts and have helped to reinforce the two competing messages, perhaps to a greater degree than in areas of the country where the race isn,t considered up for grabs.