Ohio Politics

At age 55, David Leasure has big hopes for his latest job application: as a bag boy in a local supermarket. A victim of recent layoffs, the truck driver has gone 15 months without steady work. Now he's ready to swallow his pride and sack groceries for near-minimum wage -- if it means health benefits and sleeping at night. In nearby Youngstown, steelworker Dennis Church has full-time work but nagging insecurity. A 50-year-old father of two, he has known of suicides and home foreclosures.

Opening day, Cleveland Municipal Stadium, April 1978. On the mound, to toss out the ceremonial first pitch, the 31-year-old maverick mayor and enfant terrible of Ohio politics. He is wearing a bulletproof vest. Police sharpshooters ring the ballpark roof. Dennis J. Kucinich looks up at the crowd. When he is in attendance and Indian fans yell "Kill the bum," he knows they aren't talking about the umpire. His appearance on the field brings a chorus of boos from 75,000 fans.

A mug shot of former savings and loan magnate Charles H. Keating Jr., with prison numbers under his chin, flashes on local television screens. Appearing next to it: A smiling photo of Democratic Sen. John Glenn of Ohio, the former astronaut and the first American to orbit the Earth. For Glenn, 71, who is accustomed to being honored as a national hero, it is a humiliating experience to be identified in his opponent's political commercials as a collaborator with a notorious convicted felon.

Whenever Rep. Deborah Pryce boards a flight home to Columbus at the end of another exhausting week in Washington, she keeps one eye out to see if fellow Ohio Republican John R. Kasich is getting on the same plane. If she sees him, she pretends to be asleep. "Do you know what it's like to be trapped on an airplane sitting next to John Kasich?" laments Pryce. "Sitting next to all that intensity, after being around it all week? It's a good thing it's just an hour flight."

Not that long ago, Tom Noe was a regular and welcome figure in political circles throughout the state. For years, the rare-coin dealer and collector and his wife, Bernadette, had contributed to and helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for GOP candidates. Noe gave campaign contributions to five of Ohio's seven Supreme Court justices and to President Bush's reelection campaign. He gave money to newly elected California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the spring of 2004.