“No matter who the president is, it’s just someone to blame stuff on,” says Mr. Ingersol, a registered Republican who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because he thought it would be “cool” to have a black president. This time, he says, his vote is a coin toss.
Ingersol doesn’t know it, but he’s a hot commodity in Ohio, part of a key demographic – the white working class – in what could be the decisive state of the 2012 race. If the upper Midwest, from Iowa to Pennsylvania, is the premier battleground region of the country, then Ohio is ground zero. While Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania lean Democratic, Ohio and Iowa are tossups. And with 18 electoral votes (to Iowa’s six), Ohio has more power to swing the outcome