I married a woman from Cincinnati and have spent a lot of time in Ohio. And, aside from landmarks and the color of people's football sweatshirts, there is no way to tell the difference between Michigan and Ohio. They are both well-populated but have a rural/country vibe, their economies are still struggling to adapt to the decline of heavy industry, neither is heavily Democratic nor heavily Republican, and they describe cola as "pop" rather than soda. We're not talking about the United States vs. the Soviet Union here.