Clinton, Obama nearing finish line in Ohio

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TOLEDO, Ohio -- Forget that kinder, gentler Hillary Rodham Clinton who appeared on the campaign trail a year ago.Back when the Democratic presidential contest began in Iowa, the presumed front-runner used a softer touch to attack her abrasive image and high negative ratings.Often, the New York senator lowered her voice and spoke through an aw-shucks grin, talking about the values she learned growing up in "a middle-class family in the middle of America in the middle of the century."She tossed out that speech a long time ago -- somewhere between Iowa and those last 10 caucuses and primaries where she finished behind Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.Now, as Obama pulls away in the delegate count, the clock is ticking down to the March 4 contests in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island. Clinton knows she must win -- and win big.There's no more time for soft-spoken small talk.Suddenly, she's embracing her old tough-as-nails image and a "fighter" theme.She's "a pit bull and not in a derogatory sense," Valencia Ruiz, 30, of Toledo, says. "I like it, and I think it works for Ohio."It had better.As her husband, former President Bill Clinton, said at a rally in Texas last week: "If she wins Texas and Ohio, I think she will be the nominee. If you don't deliver for her, then I don't think she can. It's all on you."In Ohio, where Clinton has her highest hopes, it's plain to see something the once-"inevitable" nominee already has lost: the ability to walk into a room, talk about herself and her vision for America, without mentioning you-know-who -- Obama.X...X...XIn the span of one week, Clinton made two visits to Youngstown, Ohio. Obama stopped by, too.That's because this rough-edged, working-class city, which still hasn't recovered from the steel-industry collapse of the late 1970s, is the heart of the Democrat-rich Mahoning Valley.It's the place where lunch-bucket populist James Traficant held the congressional seat before he was "beamed up" to prison on corruption charges.Economic issues resonate in places like Youngstown, where Obama has tried to link Clinton to her husband's unpopular North American Free Trade Agreement, and she fires back, saying she's the only one with a specific, four-point plan to fix it.Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams is in Obama's camp now. But he said he wasn't ready to board the bandwagon until he heard more details to go with the candidate's inspiring rhetoric.But this month, when Obama stirred a Youngstown crowd much larger than either one of Clinton's, Williams got the specifics he was hoping to hear.He said the Clintons -- Hillary and Bill -- still have fans in Ohio. But they're no longer in the driver's seat."They looked into the rearview mirror and here he came."X...X...XScreams rained down from the balcony of the ornate Cleveland Convention Center as the thin Democratic front-runner, Obama, bounced up some steps to a tiny platform built below a high, stained-glass ceiling.It was as if the Beatles had just arrived from Britain.The "rock star" began pacing, launching into the greatest hits that many of his Cleveland fans had only heard on television before."Barack, why are you running so soon? Why are you running this time? You're a relatively young man. You can afford to wait ...," he said."No! No! No!" the crowd shouted in protest.Someone yelled: "We want change!" And that became the crowd's chant. The candidate paced on the stage, letting it ride.Whatever else he was going to say, he echoed his fans, saying, "People are hoping for change ... "As he continued, people in the crowd started finishing Obama's sentences for him."Change in America does not happen from the top down," he started saying. "It happens from the bottom up!" audience members said right along with him, bouncing in their seats.One of those fans completing the sentences was Yusif Abdul Haqq, 37, a local deliveryman who said he never once paid attention to politics before he heard Obama."I always used to ask my mother at the end who to vote for. And she'd tell me," he said, beaming after seeing his hero in person for the first time. "Now, I'm telling her."While Clinton has shaken up her stump speech countless times over the past year -- and several times in the last few weeks alone -- Obama has mostly just tweaked his. There have been a few major rewrites, like the tougher tone he took for the Jefferson Jackson Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, late last year.But now that he has started a national buzz, he's not messing much with success, only adding a few new flourishes here and there, a couple new riffs on things in the news or, lately, a few extra details to counter charges that he's too vague.By this point, hundreds of appearances past his official debut last February, Obama knows what will bring people out of their seats.When audience members shout "We love you" the way they do, he shot back, "I love you back." It seems spontaneous to new viewers, and crowds shout with glee. But after all this time, he knows to expect it -- and so does the press gallery, which now greatly outnumbers Clinton's.X...X...XObama has that hot streak. He's even pulling ahead in the polls in Texas, where Clinton once had a wide lead.But he's still an underdog to win Ohio, a place that was key to Bill Clinton's victories in 1992 and 1996.In those controversial mailers, on the stump and in (increasingly rare) media availabilities, he's harping on the North American Free Trade Agreement. His argument is that if Hillary Clinton wants to claim credit for some good things that happened under her husband's administration, she can't run away from a trade agreement he signed that many Ohio residents blame for the loss of manufacturing jobs.Still, if Obama manages to come from behind in the Ohio polls, it might have as much to do with organization as anything else.Here, as nationally, Clinton has more of the Democratic establishment in her court. But Obama has the bigger bankroll now. And he has a youth-fueled organization and methods first honed in Iowa about how to turn his screaming crowds into actual votes.In the waning days of the Iowa campaign, talk-show queen Oprah Winfrey helped Obama draw a combined 28,500 people at just two ticketed events. To get in the door, folks had to sign their tickets with name and contact information, which added to a massive database for get-out-the-vote pestering.In Ohio, Obama required tickets for last week's events in Akron and Cleveland. Folks were invited to pick them up at locations that just happened to be close to the local elections offices -- all the better for them to lock in early votes using the blank applications provided along with the ducats.X...X...XAs the clock ticked down to the March 4 vote, the campaign's decibels reached levels that might frighten those in those more placid, small-town settings back in Iowa.After more than a year of stumping and 20 nationally televised debates, the race for the nomination feels like it's winding down.Some writers are calling this the "last throes" of the Clinton insurgency, but Clinton has made it clear that she will not go quietly."We've got to work around the clock to take our country back," she said to loud cheers at a recent rally in Toledo.But later, just as her speech reached a crescendo with fiery talk about the war in Iraq, there were hollers from the grandstand. An audience member had collapsed and needed medical assistance."Need help?" Clinton asked, breaking off her speech in mid-sentence. "Is there a doctor or paramedic or nurse? Here. Pass this water back like a fire brigade. OK ... Let me wrap up ... "In the back of the gym, a local news reporter offered a sober assessment:"This lady's not catching a break today, is she?"(Contact M.E. Sprengelmeyer of the Rocky Mountain News at www.rockymountainnews.com.)