From Mary Katherine Ham.

In order to turn Ohio blue, as Obama wishes to do, he would need to increase urban turn-out, which is probable, while retaining Kerry’s wins in a handful of southern and eastern counties. One of those counties is Belmont County, which went for Kerry 52-46 percent. Another is Athens, which went for Kerry 63-36 percent; Jefferson, 52-47 for Kerry; Mahonig, 62-36 for Kerry; Stark, 50-48 for Kerry. The raw number margins in those counties were not huge, with most of Kerry’s payload coming in Cuyahoga and surrounding counties, but it would seem Obama would need to retain most of those margins to flip the state.

Unfortunately for Obama, Belmont is the highest coal-producing county in the state. Athens, Jefferson, Mahonig and Stark are also home to some of Ohio’s 3,000 mining jobs and an estimated 11 coal industry spin-off jobs that each of the mining jobs represents. Now, wouldn’t voting for Obama be decidedly against these people’s interests?

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