Presidential campaign rallies scheduled in NE Ohio

Sen. Hillary Clinton will hold campaign rallies in Elyria and Akron on Sunday on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama. Both events are open to the public. Tickets are not required, although an RSVP is encouraged.

Doors open at 11:30 a.m. for the first event at Lorain County Community College,1005 N. Abbe Road, Elyria. To RSVP, go to here.

Doors open at 2 p.m. for the Akron event, at the Ellet High School gymnasium, 309 Woolf Ave. The program begins at 3:30 p.m. To RSVP, go here.

Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, will hold a rally Tuesday near Youngstown. The event is at 4 p.m. at Winner Aviation, 1453 Youngstown Kingsville Road N.E., Vienna. Doors open at 1 p.m. Tickets will be available starting today. For information, go here.

Palin also will attend fund-raisers around Ohio next week.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Clinton's visits to Akron and Elyria on Sunday to stump for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama are coming not a moment too soon for anxious Ohio Democrats.

With two new polls this week showing a tight race in Ohio, Democratic officials say they worry that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has boosted GOP nominee John McCain's prospects in the state, and that Obama has his work cut out for him if he wants to secure Ohio's crucial 20 electoral votes.

Obama will need to not only sharpen his message about his differences with McCain on economic issues, officials in several key swing counties said this week, but also continue to seek plenty of help on the campaign trail from popular Democrats like Clinton, her husband and Gov. Ted Strickland.

Such help, they said, will be particularly important in non-urban areas of Ohio where Palin is likely to appeal to Republicans and independents and where Clinton trounced Obama in the primary last winter.

"We had tons of new Democrats who came out to vote for Hillary... Now a lot of those voters are on the fence," said Stephen Madru, Democratic Party Chairman in Ross County in southern Ohio, which narrowly supported President Bush in 2000 and 2004 after backing former President Bill Clinton in 1996.

Madru said he fears Palin is attracting gun owners and religious conservatives in southern Ohio who previously were unimpressed by McCain.

"I thought they just wouldn't vote. Now I'm afraid they are going to vote, which tends to change the whole dynamics of the thing," he said. "It scares the heck out of me."

In nearby Scioto County, which voted Republican in the last two presidential elections and Democratic in the previous two, Democratic chairman Randy Basham says race is one of many hurdles Obama will need to overcome to beat McCain in southeastern Ohio.

"It's Appalachia. Race will be a factor here," said Basham. "When you get out here in rural America, it's going to be tough."

For Obama to lure Scioto County voters who backed Strickland in 2006, Basham said, he needs to woo independents by focusing on bread-and-butter economic issues such as the minimum wage and the high cost of health care and gasoline, and draw a stark contrast between his positions and McCain's.

It also would help, Basham said, if Obama would show up in person in Ohio's Appalachian counties to "help break the ice on the race thing" -- especially if he were accompanied by politicians like Strickland or the Clintons who are popular among the area's economically struggling voters.

"He (Strickland) needs to travel with him and say, 'Look, I'm touching him. He's real. He's a person that can help you with your needs here in southern Ohio. He's what I need as governor,'" said Basham.

Concerns about Obama's ability to carry independent voters are not confined to southern Ohio. In Geauga County, Democratic chair Janet Carson says she fears race is "the big gorilla in the corner of the room that nobody wants to talk about."

Carson said she hopes Obama will not let various GOP attacks distract him from focusing relentlessly on jobs and the economy. And, like Basham, she said she hopes Obama will travel - and send high-profile surrogates to travel -- outside cities to more rural and exurban parts of the state that Strickland targeted in 2006. The personal touch will be necessary in places like Geauga County, she said, to help counter McCain's choice of Palin, whom she called "a brilliant pick."

"Sarah Palin is exactly what McCain needs to appeal to a broader base of voters. It has made our job harder," said Carson.

Two polls released this week highlight Democratic concerns about the challenge facing Obama. The Ohio Poll, released Friday by the University of Cincinnati, shows McCain ahead 48-44. The Quinnipiac University Poll, released Thursday, shows Obama ahead 49-44.

In both polls, McCain has the edge among independent voters and is way ahead in southeast Ohio, a region Strickland and both Clintons won. Quinnipiac shows 28 percent of Clinton primary voters supporting McCain.

Both polls, however, also found that many voters have yet to firmly commit to either candidate. And Democrats say they remain optimistic that Obama can carry Ohio -- especially if Palin's popularity wanes after the initial surge of curiosity about her subsides.

"It's doable, but we have to work hard at it," said Dan Saks, a Clark County Democratic official. "It isn't going to come easy."

Saks said McCain's bounce in the polls after the GOP convention was "a bit of a wake-up call" for Democrats in his swing county, which sits between Columbus and Dayton.

"The newness of Sarah Palin certainly raised the excitement level," he said, referring to Republican and independent voters. "My hope is people will realize she's not as she's being painted."

Saks and several other Ohio Democratic officials said Palin has had one positive effect for them - spurring more Democrats who disagree with her to volunteer for Obama.

In Medina County, which tends to vote Republican but supported Strickland in 2006, Democratic chair Pam Miller said she saw a spike in volunteers after Palin was chosen. An open house at Democratic headquarters last week after the GOP convention, she said, drew 150 people.

"For us that was really phenomenal," she said.