Ohio in play

Both Obama and Romney are next door in Ohio today for early afternoon speeches. Romney returns Sunday on his bus tour after driving though Pa.

Charles Babington at the AP takes a look at strategy and TV spending:

In the most recent weekly tally of campaign broadcast spending, Romney's forces nearly matched Obama's dollar for dollar in Ohio. Romney and the super Pac that backs him focused mainly on urban areas. They heavily outspent their rivals in GOP-leaning Cincinnati, and slightly outspent them in Columbus and Democratic-leaning Cleveland. Obama's campaign bought air time in smaller markets that Romney skipped: Zanesville, Steubenville and two West Virginia towns whose TV broadcasts reach southeast Ohio.

Columbus - Ohio's capital, biggest city and home to Ohio State University - is a competitive region that Obama won comfortably in 2008 but George W. Bush narrowly carried four years earlier. Both campaigns will fight hard for its swing voters.

Strategists say Romney hopes to run up big margins in rural areas and the Cincinnati suburbs. Obama's campaign will need big turnouts from Cleveland's black and liberal voters, and it hopes union households in the struggling coal and steel regions won't abandon Democrats.