In northern Ohio, Obama ads effectively define Romney
Swing voters in a long-struggling manufacturing region express suspicion of the Republican's record at Bain Capital.

FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio — Strike up a conversation about Mitt Romney in this working-class suburb of Cleveland, and it's a good bet that it will quickly turn to Bain Capital.
President Obama's blistering indictment of his Republican challenger's career at the private equity firm has come to define Romney, interviews show, among swing voters here in one of the election's Great Lakes battlegrounds.

Television ads that Obama and his allies have aired on Cleveland stations for weeks have left some wondering how Romney earned up to $250 million at Bain and whether he caused the layoffs of Americans like themselves along the way.
Echoing the Obama ads, they also question why some of Romney's personal fortune wound up in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
"He should just surrender his tax returns and let the people see what he's done," said 50-year-old Kevin Cannon, a Fairview Park grocery store cashier who voted for Republicans George W. Bush and John McCain, but might reluctantly support a second term for Obama.

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Still, conversations with more than two dozen voters in this swing area of a long-struggling manufacturing region show that at the very least, the Obama advertising has stoked concerns about a key matter: whether Romney would stand up for people like them.

They also underscore the strategic risk that Romney has taken by declining — until this week — to run ads that present any counter-narrative about his work at Bain, where he says he gained expertise in creating jobs. Instead, Romney has been defensive, airing commercials calling Obama's allegations false, but otherwise staying focused on portraying the president as a failure on the economy.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ohio-bain-20120803,0,523290,full.story