There used to be a saying in politics: “As goes Maine, so goes the nation.” The saying extended back to an ancient time when the people of Maine were more or less typical of the population as a whole, and demonstrated an uncanny knack for picking the winning candidate in presidential elections.

Then came 1936, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for a second term. He won one of the greatest landslides in history, but he didn’t carry Maine. The only other state he failed to carry was Vermont. Clearly, Maine had lost its title as the embodiment of mainstream politics. After that election, FDR’s fellow Democrats concocted a joking, new slogan: “As goes Maine, so goes Vermont.”

Which state today do you suppose has inherited Maine’s infallible instinct for winners? You might suppose Florida, because of its key role in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 elections. It’s not a bad choice, but it’s incorrect. An even better choice would be Nevada, which has sided with the winner in each of the eight most recent elections, starting with Ronald Reagan’s first victory. However, Nevada boasts only the second longest string of correct choices.

The winner is… Ohio. It has picked the president twelve consecutive times, starting in 1964 with Lyndon Johnson. If I were running for President, I would tell the pilot of my plane to take me straight to one of the big airports in Ohio, and would tour that state incessantly for the next four months. Actually, President Obama seemed to have much the same idea when he recently took his famous, Canadian-made bus to Ohio for a campaign tour. But even the canny politician Obama probably will campaign elsewhere as well.

What is it about Ohio? Well, it seems to be pretty typical of the U.S. population as a whole. Its population is 12 percent black and 3  percent Hispanic. The percentage of blacks is ordinary among the 50 states (or is it 57?), while the Hispanic population is very much on the low side.  Neither blacks nor Hispanics, which by and large are faithful adherents of the Democratic party, can be said to predominate in Ohio. But Ohio blacks certainly are a significant factor when they choose to come to the polls in great numbers.  Anyway, Republican presidential candidates are not doomed from the start when they come to Ohio soliciting votes.

Ohio is noted for its large, white, working-class population, a group that  tends to be conservative these days. Ohio was once a booming industrial state, but the big gripe right now is that many industrial jobs have been siphoned off to foreign countries. You can see this fact play out in the campaigning. Obama, as the incumbent, is likely to be blamed for any job losses, whether that is fair or not, so the Obama camp has responded by trying to paint Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, as a ruthless job siphoner during his career as a venture capitalist.  

On the other hand, Ohio’s unemployment rate is actually a bit lower than the national average. It has been hovering above 7 percent, while the national rate is stuck in a perennial 8.2 percent rut. Sadly for the Democrats, it is hard for them to claim credit for Ohio‘s relatively good fortune, because unemployment in the state stood generally higher than the national average until a Republican, John Kasich, took over as governor last year after beating a Democratic incumbent in the 2010 elections.  One of Kasich’s key campaign promises was to make the state more receptive to businesses that might want to move to Ohio.

Ohio is looking generally more red (Republican) than blue (Democratic) these days.  Thirteen of its eighteen congressmen are Republicans, and one of its two senators also is a Republican. He is Rob Portman, who has been prominently mentioned as a possible running mate for Romney. At the moment Portman has practically zero name recognition among the nation’s voters, although they know him well enough in Ohio. Maybe Portman could swing Ohio into the Republican column this November, which I personally would find gratifying.

However, I’m not going to suggest that this will automatically give the election to Romney. He has to  lure several other swing states back to the Republicans as well. It’s simple mathematics. The Dems won last time by a comfortable margin.

But Ohio would be a massively  important -- perhaps essential -- step in the right direction.