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To repeat the political axiom: As goes Ohio, so goes the country. The bellweather state is tightly contested this year; it is one of the centerpieces of Bob Dole's strategy to pull out the election. Margaret Warner reports.

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MARGARET WARNER: No Republican since Dwight Eisenhower has won the presidency without first winning Ohio. Just ask George Bush. In 1988, he won Ohio and the election. Four years later, he lost the state's 21 electoral votes and the presidency. But given Ohio's large urban Democratic base, a Republican has to win big among suburbanites. To see how Bob Dole is doing with these voters, we spent last weekend in the Cleveland suburb of Lyndhurst.

MARGARET WARNER: Saturday morning is a family time in Lyndhurst, a small, older suburb whose residents tend to settle and stay. Its mixed voting history makes Lyndhurst what political professionals call a swing district, with slightly Republican leanings. Voters here gave George Bush a big win in 1988, but in ‘92, a good number of his former voters here defected to Bill Clinton and Ross Perot. To gauge local feelings about this election, we began with an informal sampling at a popular bagel shop, asking patrons for the first word or phrase that came to mind when they thought about Bob Dole.

MAN IN BAGEL SHOP: Very sort of a sensible, straight guy.

SPOKESPERSON: Colorless.

PERSON IN BAGEL SHOP: He's old.

ANOTHER PERSON IN BAGEL SHOP: Politician.

ANOTHER MAN: He's a good man.

MARGARET WARNER: All those comments came from Republicans or independents who'd voted Republican in recent elections. These are voters a Republican candidate should expect to have firmly in his corner this close to election day. Wayne Horowitz, himself a Republican, owns Broadway Bagels. He works at the restaurant all day and talks to his customers.

WAYNE HOROWITZ: The election this year, very touchy. The people who are voting Democrat seem to feel strong, and I think the people that are voting Republican are a little nervous because they don't feel Dole could do the job.

MARGARET WARNER: And your customers, who tend to be Republicans, what are they saying about Bob Dole, himself?

WAYNE HOROWITZ: Maybe a little too old, maybe not strong enough. He's not in touch with all the problems that we have today. Too many years, too many years in Washington; he's just missing that old outside aura of what's going on around, things that he should be aware of. And the younger people, he's lacking a lot of things. I'm still going to vote for him, but--

MARGARET WARNER: Bob Dole knows he needs to generate more enthusiasm here. He's been in the state four times this month, most recently on Tuesday.

SEN. BOB DOLE, Republican Presidential Candidate: I come to Ohio, and I think about every week.

MARGARET WARNER: But President Clinton is working the state hard too, as he did last week in Cincinnati, and the latest polls show Mr. Clinton ahead in Ohio by nine to twelve points. Plenty of Republicans here do support Bob Dole, particularly Republican men like Mike Hensley, who manages a string of muffler shops in the Cleveland area. Hensley likes the small government message of the Republican Party. He and his family are doing fine economically but he doesn't give anyone in Washington credit for that.

MIKE HENSLEY: Well, I feel I'm better off, but I really don't feel that that has anything to do with the political parties, either Democrats or Republicans. I'm better off because I work hard, and I, I work for a very good company.

MARGARET WARNER: Have you decided who you're going to vote for?

MIKE HENSLEY: I'm pretty much decided that it will be Bob Dole.

MARGARET WARNER: You don't sound very enthusiastic about it.

MIKE HENSLEY: Well, I'm, I'm somewhat disappointed in the Republican Party, in their, um, their lack of a good, strong campaign. Um, the--President Clinton, as much as there are things that I dislike about him and his policies, uh, one thing that's--that he does very well is campaign very well.

MARGARET WARNER: Bill Elicker, who sells long-term nursing care insurance, is a Republican, leaning independent, who voted for Ross Perot last time. He thinks the overriding issue in this election is one of character. He says many voters may discount the character questions raised about the President, but he cannot.

BILL ELICKER: I'm leaning toward Bob Dole because I consider the man to be a moral individual as compared to his--his competition. I say if we're going to put the character issue aside, uh, I think that's been part of our problem as a country. I think the combination of media, Hollywood, and everybody putting the character aside, has led us down this path where we really have abandoned a lot of our moralistic base.

MARGARET WARNER: You think the President has a lot to do with that?

BILL ELICKER: Absolutely. The man must have character. He must be a leader, and he has to lead by example.

MARGARET WARNER: Elicker's doubts extend to the President's politics too.

BILL ELICKER: Oh, I think basically the man seems to shift with the wind. He ran as a moderate, came in and first act was terribly liberal, and the American public sent him a Republican Congress to tone him down a little, and now he's more of a Republican than a Democrat, and I don't like that wishy-washy.

MARGARET WARNER: Yet Elicker and many other voters we spoke with in Lyndhurst, even those supporting Dole, said they don't have a good sense of who Dole is or what kind of president he would be.

MIKE HENSLEY: No, I don't, and that's one of the things that bothers me. And I guess, you know, I've made my decision to vote for Bob Dole, but that's more out of not wanting Bill Clinton or Ross Perot in the White House, and--but I'd like to know more about Bob Dole, and I don't think he's doing a good job getting to the public what he can offer.

MARGARET WARNER: That's exactly what bothers lifelong Republican John Fidell, a computer sales manager and father of four. He and his wife voted for Bush in 1988 and again in ‘92. They don't want to vote for Bill Clinton this year but they aren't yet committed to Dole.

JOHN FIDELL: He's not saying anything about what he's going to do for me.

MARGARET WARNER: What's your sense of who Bob Dole is and what he cares about?

JOHN FIDELL: That's an excellent question, and I really don't have a sense of that, to be honest.

LINDA FIDELL: I think he's a moral man--more moral than Clinton.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, what does Bob Dole lack?

JOHN FIDELL: He lacks--he's not in touch with the, the American population, not at all in touch with it, and Clinton I think is more in touch, at least verbally, with the American population, but Dole really isn't even in touch. He seems to be still living in the 50's. Uh, he's not living in the 90's.

LINDA FIDELL: I don't think Dole is really in, in this campaign for the people. I just, I think that he feels this is, this is due him to become President because he's, he's done his time in the Senate, and this is something that should be his.

MARGARET WARNER: John Fidell remains undecided. But his wife says she may not vote at all. Dole knows he cannot afford to have Republicans like Linda Fidell staying home on election day. In his ad and on the stump, Dole's trying to persuade them that they do have a stake in this election, his promise of a tax cut.

AD SPOKESMAN: The Dole plan starts with a 15 percent tax cut for working Americans.

MARGARET WARNER: So we asked how the tax cut idea was playing.

MIKE HENSLEY: A 15 percent tax cut. Okay, that's all well and good, but how do you plan on financing it?

BILL ELICKER: I've heard that song before.

CONNIE KELLERS PAPA: It's jargon. You know, it's nothing more than how to win.

MARGARET WARNER: This skepticism about the tax cut permeates the entire campaign for former model Connie Papa, who voted for Bush in ‘92. The same goes for her friend, Laura Dykes, a recently divorced, single mother, who voted for Perot last time. The two met for brunch with friends at Connie Papa's house on Sunday. Both say they're in a quandary about whom to vote for this year.

CONNIE KELLERS PAPA: It'll be a clutch decision. I have a chemistry disorder with Clinton. I just can't connect with that man at all, and I don't feel real strongly about Dole either.

MARGARET WARNER: You voted for Bush in 1992, you voted Republican then. Why wouldn't you vote for Dole?

CONNIE KELLERS PAPA: There's been a certain disingenuousness about candidates lately that throw me off. I just don't--I don't feel comfortable. I don't trust them. It's an issue of winning the campaign and not, um, following through on promises. It's been over and over and over.

MARGARET WARNER: Laura Dykes is also turned off this time, even by Ross Perot.

LAURA DYKES: You know, truthfully, I voted for him because I didn't really want to vote for anybody else. I haven't even heard or seen anything of him this time around. And I just kind of think he was a big fluke.

MARGARET WARNER: If anyone were watching this piece, they'd look at the two of you and they'd say classic Clinton voters. You're both women, young mothers. You're Clinton target voters. Why aren't you for him?

CONNIE KELLERS PAPA: I don't respect him. I don't see him respectfully at all.

LAURA DYKES: I find him sort of sleazy. I, I do.

MARGARET WARNER: Yet these two mothers don't buy Dole's other line of attack being touted in TV ads here--blaming President Clinton for the rise in teenage drug use.

AD SPOKESPERSON: Because Bill Clinton isn't protecting our children from drugs. He cut the drug czar's office 83 percent.

CONNIE KELLERS PAPA: I can't imagine how it could be a President's, the President's fault.

LAURA DYKES: I absolutely hate those ads. I, I hate to see one presidential candidate slamming the other one.

MARGARET WARNER: In the end, says Laura Dykes, she may vote for Dole as the lesser of three evils. But Connie Pap isn't ready to do that.

CONNIE KELLERS PAPA: I may throw my vote away.

MARGARET WARNER: Meaning?

CONNIE KELLERS PAPA: Meaning not vote.

MARGARET WARNER: Another working mother who doesn't buy Dole's drug ad is office manager Patti Spiegle. She and her stockbroker husband, Chuck, have three children, the youngest a cheerleader at the local high school. They think the drug problem is ultimately an issue for schools and parents to handle. Patti Spiegle is a registered Republican. She voted for Ronald Reagan in ‘84 and for Bush in ‘88. But in 1992, she voted for Bill Clinton and thinks she'll so again.

PATTI SPIEGLE: I don't see the Republican candidate coming up with things that are wow and we're really going to get this done, um, and Clinton has got started, he's really trying.

MARGARET WARNER: What is your sense of President Clinton and what he cares about?

PATTI SPIEGLE: I do think that he's started working on health care, um, and I think he will continue. The welfare bill that he's working on I think is a start. It, it may not be the answer, um, nobody's going to come up with the answer the first time around.

MARGARET WARNER: What's your sense of Bob Dole?

PATTI SPIEGLE: This is certainly nothing political. I do think he's too old.

MARGARET WARNER: She also thinks Dole might have trouble restraining the politician she really dislikes, Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

PATTI SPIEGLE: I think he's way off the wall most of the time. (laughing) And, uh, you know, maybe, maybe President Clinton can help keep him in check.

MARGARET WARNER: Does your--do your feelings about Newt Gingrich at all affect your feelings about Bob Dole?

PATTI SPIEGLE: Could be. It, it could be in the back of my mind.

MARGARET WARNER: Indeed, many Republicans we talked to didn't seem to mind the prospect of a second Clinton term as long as there continues to be a Republican Congress to keep him in check.

JOHN FIDELL: With Clinton versus a Republican, it'll keep it steady, and we've been steady. I mean, it's not bad to be steady.

MARGARET WARNER: Even voters committed to Dole seemed resigned to the possibility of a Clinton win.

BILL ELICKER: I think unfortunately Mr. Clinton will be reelected based on charisma and not on his moral character.

MARGARET WARNER: He and the other Dole backer in our group do, however, have some advice for their candidate.

BILL ELICKER: If he can show me his personality and what kind of a really nice guy, what kind of a real individual he is, I think he might have a chance.

MIKE HENSLEY: Provide the answers that people want and why should we vote for you over Clinton, give us a reason.

MARGARET WARNER: And he hasn't done that yet?

MIKE HENSLEY: I don't think so.

MARGARET WARNER: With just 40 days to go, the Dole campaign has begun narrowing its list of target states, all but eliminating some in the Midwest and elsewhere. But Dole aides say their current game plan for getting the 270 electoral votes they need still depends on winning Ohio.

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