Before party can woo a voter, it must win a viewer

COLUMBUS, Ohio — — Freida Weisman is the political equivalent of a unicorn, a member of that fabled — but almost never sighted — species known as the undecided Ohio voter. The white-haired Weisman, who works in a Kosher supermarket in Columbus at an age when most of her peers are long retired, was an enthusiastic George W. Bush supporter in 2000. Since then, her ardor has faded because of "the war and all the lives being lost."

Weisman should be a prime target audience for the Republican convention. But, as she explained over breakfast Tuesday, she didn't watch the opening night of the festivities in New York City and has no plans to tune in for Bush's acceptance speech Thursday. "Maybe I'll put it on if I have nothing better to do," she said in the dismissive tone of a teenager telling a would-be date that she will be busy washing her hair every night this month.

Instead of buttonholing alternate delegates from Wyoming on the floor of Madison Square Garden, I flew to Ohio to gauge how the GOP TV spectacular is playing with actual voters at the bull's-eye of Campaign 2004. Judging from my breakfast conversations at Paul's restaurant, just over the Columbus city line in the middle-income community of Whitehall, the convention was mostly stoking the passions of stalwart Republicans.

Typical was James Taylor, a telecommunications sales representative from suburban Dublin, who had rushed home from his son's high-school soccer game to watch John McCain's opening-night speech. "He was very positive, very supportive of the entire GOP," Taylor said, confessing his surprise that the staunchly independent McCain had come across as such a party stalwart. Taylor himself is enough of a Bush loyalist that he plans to take time off from work this afternoon to be part of the throng when the president makes his final pre-convention stop, in Columbus. (Illustrating the significance of central Ohio, John Kerry and John Edwards will try to grab the post-convention spotlight Thursday night by beginning a statewide bus trip with a midnight rally in Springfield, less than an hour west of Columbus.)

Standing in his office by a color-coded map of Ohio, Robert Paduchik, the Bush campaign manager for Ohio, was so enthusiastic about the president's visit (and the anticipated crowd of more than 20,000) that he considered the rally to be as important locally as the GOP convention. The map shows the many recent visits to the state by Bush, Dick Cheney and the first lady. "The president will come to town, see lots of folks, get great news coverage and spark grass-roots activity," Paduchik said. "It's a total win across the board."

The breakfast crowd at Paul's was not a representative sample, but the passions of the grass roots were reflected in the way Bush supporters spoke in terms reminiscent of GOP TV commercials and talking points. Art Brooks, a retired manager for a food company who will be cheering at today's rally, sounded like an attack ad as he ridiculed Kerry: "It's scary that he wants to take money away from our military and raise taxes." And Liz Navarro, who owns a sign company in Columbus, looked up from reading about the convention in The Columbus Dispatch to say: "I'm supporting Bush in all his decisions. I'm impressed that he doesn't waver and he's strong."

Yet the convention's initial thematic emphasis on a resolute Bush standing like Winston Churchill (Rudy Giuliani's image) against worldwide terrorism may have been too limited a political argument. After all, Republican Ohio Gov. Bob Taft told me in New York on Monday morning that "the economy is the No. 1 issue in Ohio, clearly." But on opening night at the convention, there were almost no references to lower taxes and jobs by the featured speakers. Of course, McCain and Giuliani have never been fervent apostles of anti-tax conservatism.

Ohio State University political scientist Herb Asher was puzzled by what he called the new Republican slogan: "It's the terrorists, stupid." This narrowcasting, Asher believes, "may end up conceding too much ground to the Democrats." As he put it, "If they can have Ohioans thinking about terrorism rather than the economy, it might help briefly. But that quickly wears off."

Most recent Ohio polls show the election as a statistical dead heat with about 5% of voters undecided. Given that, it is difficult to guess what in the kaleidoscope of conflicting campaign images will dictate the outcome. In the local news break of ABC's Good Morning America on Tuesday, the two featured stories were a funeral for an Ohio National Guardsman killed in Iraq and area delegates to the GOP convention complaining that anti-war protesters had subjected them to ridicule and what the TV announcer called "rude gestures."

Maybe the election will indeed come down to people like Freida Weisman. Despite her growing distaste for Bush ("a lot of it is the economy, too"), Kerry has not won her heart. In words that may sound a bit ominous to Democrats, she said: "I don't like him. I don't like his personality." But for all the gushy commentary about the GOP's arduous efforts to woo undecided voters this week, it is worth remembering that Weisman, at least, probably won't be watching.

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