I had the opportunity a few days ago to interview Jo Ann Davidson, the Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee, and it was a very interesting conversation. To give you a little background, Jo Ann is from Ohio, and spent a lot of time in the state, in both elected office and organizing successful campaigns. She has a lot of knowledge about what it's going to take to win in Ohio, both nationally and locally. We got to talk a strategy a bit.

Jo Ann repeated something I've heard time and again from various Republican strategists. She said we have to win the "collar counties", or the counties that make rings around the metropolitan areas to win the state. We're going to lose Cleveland, but we should be able to win Lake and Geauga counties. We can underperform in Cincinatti, but we should win Butler and Warren counties. In addition, Southeast Ohio has long been the swing area that makes or breaks campaigns. Winning SE Ohio and "collar counties" will once again be key in 2008.

She also talked about John McCain as the nominee, and said he has unique appeal that really gives us a fighting chance this election cycle. When questioned about Conservative angst, she said she's confident he'll make an appeal and said his pro-life record and his record on judges (Gang of 14 being an exception) are vastly superior to Obama's. I asked her if McCain will put counties like mine, Trumbull, into play, and she said he'll fight everywhere, harkening back to his Youngstown visit. I'd say she had a cautiously optimistic tone about Ohio in 2008, and she described the political environment as "better than 2006", which is surely pleasant to hear. On 2006, she said Ohio had a mix of local issues (Bob Ney, rare coins, etc.) that worsened the environment, and that's no longer an issue. As a whole, the 15-minute phone interview gave me some great insight into how the RNC thinks about Ohio, and I'm eager to talk about this more on the state and national level.