Ohio Dem Senate nominee avoiding Obama?

As far as Lee Fisher is concerned, when President Obama comes to Ohio, it seems to be not "Yes we can," but "No I can't."

Here's how the Cleveland Plain Dealer sees it:

Gov. Ted Strickland will be there. So will congressmen Tim Ryan and John Boccieri. You could say they certainly don't see it as toxic to appear with President Barack Obama today in Youngstown.

But Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, won't be there. This is Obama's second trip to Ohio that Fisher has skipped.

Fisher "had private meetings" and "couldn't reschedule," spokesman John Collins says via e-mail. But Fisher is "looking forward to joining the president next time."

Let's look back to March, the last time Obama was in Ohio, courtesy of Politico:

Fisher's campaign chalked up his absence to a scheduling conflict. "We would have been happy to join the president. But we had a long scheduled editorial board meeting with the [Cleveland] Plain Dealer. It conflicted. We were with him the last time he was in town," said Fisher spokesman John Collins. But Brunner was able to keep that same long-standing commitment with the newspaper and make the Obama event. Fisher's campaign later cited a previously scheduled meeting with community leaders in Akron that could not be rescheduled.

As goes Ohio, so goes the nation.

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