That’s why Strickland’s announcement that he won’t run comes as a surprise to some observers. But not Matt Borges, the executive Director of the Ohio Republican Party.

“No one around here is really surprised,” Borges says.

Borges says he doesn’t think the Democrats can put up a gubernatorial candidate capable of beating Kasich.

You know to me, it’s more of a reflection of the remarkable job John Kasich has done as Governor in his first two years in turning the state around, and I don’t know why it would appear like an attractive opportunity for any Democrat to try to run for Governor right now.

But in a written statement, the head of Ohio’s Democratic Party, Chris Redfern, says strong Democratic office holders are prepared to hold Kasich accountable for “anti-worker, anti-woman agenda that has unfairly skyrocketed local taxes.”

Redfern points out only 36 percent of Ohioans, according to a recent statewide poll, believe Governor Kasich deserves to be re-elected.

Cuyahoga County Executive Ed Fitzgerald, one of the Democrats who is widely mentioned as a possible gubernatorial candidate, says he’s considering a run but he says Kasich’s polling numbers won’t be a factor.

“You know his polls have gone up and down, mostly down. But my decision about whether I run against him would be on my decision on whether I could do a better job and not where he stands in the polls,” Fitzgerald says.

“You know, we don’t know where his polls are going to be two years from now so I think it would be foolish to say I’m going to run where he seems to be down. You have to do it based on your own belief in your ability to serve the people of the state of Ohio in the capacity of their governor.”

Fitzgerald says he is strongly considering a run for the state’s top post.

“I have never run statewide before and I’ve got to make sure I have a broad base of support to put together a first class campaign organization.”

There’s a lot involved in running statewide under any circumstances so to run against an incumbent Governor is always a challenge so I think there is a lot of work entailed so I think I need to make a decision fairly soon because it would be a big undertaking.

Fitzgerald says he’ll make a decision by the first quarter of this year.  If he runs, he would differ with Governor Kasich on key issues.

“Budgetary issues, turnpike issue, what he did with Senate bill 5. A whole host of things. There’s a better way to do those things, a way that’s much more supportive of middle class Ohioans and I think the Democratic party’s nominee is going to have a very strong case to make,” Fitzgerald says.

Another Democrat who’s often mentioned as a possible gubernatorial candidate, Congressman Tim Ryan of Northeast Ohio, is not talking about his possible future plans, but put out a written statement thanking Strickland and his wife, former First Lady Frances, for their service.

Another man who’s often talked about as a gubernatorial candidate is former Ohio Attorney General and current federal financial consumer watchdog Richard Cordray. He explains he has a federal law enforcement regulatory position that so he cannot comment or speculate on politics.

There is also speculation that former Congresswoman Betty Sutton is considering a run for governor or other state-wide office.

Neighborhood Team Leader of Ward 18 in Clintonville, Mike McLaughlin organized Barack Obama supporters all summer and fall. Even though the election is over, he’s still organizing, hosting a call to action meeting with community volunteers earlier this month.

“To have 12 people come to an impromptu meeting on Sunday to pick up postcards to circulate them. They knew what the job was. It was a short hour meeting. It was purely procedural; this is what we’re doing. But to have 12 people show up and take postcards and say yes I’ll have them back to you in a week is very, very encouraging,” says McLaughlin.

McLaughlin says he and the volunteers are trying to preserve tax cuts for 98% of the U.S. population. He says the postcards will be sent to Congressmen Steve Stivers who currently represents the area, and Pat Tiberi who will be the new representative for Ward 18. U.S. senators Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown will also get postcards from the group.

Former state director of the Obama for America campaign in Ohio, Greg Schultz says the volunteers know how to organize on their own.

“The Obama organizing style is not dependent on staff and not dependent on fixed offices. It’s a very decentralized approach where you put a lot of power and influence in volunteer leaders,” says Schultz.

The Obama campaign had more than 140 offices across Ohio, but Schultz says while those shut down after the election, volunteers remain connected with home bases.

Schultz adds online tools like Facebook and Twitter enable President Obama to promote issues with community volunteers.

“Some of them have their own Facebook page where they give updates or they have twitter handles on twitter where they’ll tweet their successes to their other neighbors and really encourage one another. So not only is it a way to get information out, but it’s also a way to mobilize,” says Schultz.

Ohio State political science professor Paul Beck finds the Obama campaign used some of the same tools as previous presidential campaigns, but their volunteers organized for the long-term.

“The idea was that you don’t have just a six month or a one year campaign for office; for any office, but politicians, people who are in office are campaigning all the time. And so they are keeping people in place; they are raising money all the time. That’s less the case for a President in his second term,” Beck says.

Tom Zawistowski is president of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, made up of conservative groups that include the Tea Party. He worries that Ohio voters will be subjected to an endless campaign.

“We are just bombarded with these election campaigns that seem to be never ending as it is and what in effect the left is doing is they’re in permanent campaign mode and if the right does the same thing I’m not sure how much we want that,” says Zawistowski.

However he admits conservatives must pay attention.

“It’s a positive thing for the campaign. We don’t know if it’s a positive thing for citizens, but because it worked, I think you’re going to see not only them continuing it, but I think you’re going to see people on the right emulating it. So, you’re going to have a lot more activity four years before the presidential election on both sides,” adds Zawistowski.

Neighborhood volunteer Mike McLaughlin says his group will take their efforts on issues door to door if necessary.

“Liberty is eternal vigilance and we need to keep the fire to the feet of these elected representatives so they do the will of the people,” says McLauglin.

And OSU’s Paul Beck says strong voices get heard by elected leaders.

“One thing that really is powerful as an influence is the feeling that a lot of people are behind a particular cause and politicians take note of that. They take note of the letters and emails and other messages they’re getting in their offices,” Beck explains.

And there’s emerging controversy as to whether legislators should take up those issues in the final weeks of this year.

Ohioans went to the polls last weekend because the state lost a federal lawsuit brought by Democrats challenging a new Ohio law that eliminated those days. Some lawmakers want to take a second look at that issue that was struck down by the court.

And some lawmakers say they also want to take another look at current voter identification requirements.

Republican Keith Faber says election reform is important, so lawmakers “are going to take a look at it,” Faber says.

“We’ve got to see what worked and didn’t work.”

Faber isn’t ruling out accomplishing some election reform during the lame duck session….in the last few weeks of this year. That’s the period when outgoing lawmakers can take a controversial vote that they won’t have to answer for in the future.

aber says the lame duck session might be a good time to tackle some of the election reform issues.

“Because one, you clarify things when you’ve got people fresh in their minds as to what the issues and the problems were.

The other benefit would be to simple identify what you need to work on and what you don’t. Because I don’t think you do it all in one bill anyway. I think there are a lot of issues there. There are things we all agreed on that we didn’t do because we didn’t want to mess with it before the election but some of the access for the handicapped and some of those issues.

“And so the question is can you do things that improve the process? Yes. Because there are going to be some parts of that that are imminently controversial because when you talk about election issues, they always are. There may or may not be an incentive to do that or a desire to do that now,” Faber adds.

The head of Ohio’s Democratic Party, Chris Redfern, says one thing is for sure: If lawmakers try to eliminate weekend in person early voting during the lame duck session, they will have a fight on their hands.

If the lame duck session of the state senate passes legislation that limits early vote, the Ohio Democratic Party will immediately commence with a referendum.

“We have set aside resources to take on this effort and we will take on that effort. And we will rebuff and push back any effort to strip back early vote.”

Redfern, himself, will be a member of the Ohio legislature next year when the batch of newly elected lawmakers takes office. He says he thinks it’s appropriate for the legislature to take up election reform, including early in person weekend voting opportunities, next year.

“No one likes to see long lines, and I don’t believe Jon Husted likes to see long lines because it affects his legacy as secretary of state. I believe that there is an opportunity here to craft meaningful legislation that would continue the early vote opportunities for voters and to expand into additional weekends.

“I think Jon speaks to uniformity first and foremost, and I disagree with that but I will cede the argument because I think allowing every voter the chance to vote on weekends is appropriate. 144 Ottawa county residents, in my home district, voted that last weekend while tens of thousands vote in Cuyahoga county and other places during weekends. So I think if we give those folks an opportunity to vote on weekends, more people will vote and we all want that.”

For his part, Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted says he thinks the Ohio legislature needs to take up election reform but he doesn’t think it should be tackled during the lame duck session.

“I’m not going to tell my friends who run the legislature or the minority leader how to do their jobs. But let’s take a deep breath. Let’s set this aside for the lame duck session. Let’s get the leaders to sit down right now and say ok, we are going to watch what we say about each other, we are going to tone it down, and we are going to be reasonable about how we go about this.

“And we are going to just set these days in code. Take it out of the hands of the local boards and the Secretary of State. Tell us what days you want to do it and what hours you want to do it. It will be in the law and we will get it right. Let’s stop trying to write tricks into the code about provisional ballots. Let’s clean it up. Let’s start it over. Let’s get it right.”

Husted says this election went smoothly, despite the lawsuits and questions about the process.

He says Ohio is under the microscope more than surrounding states simply because the buckeye state is a key swing state. And even without election reform, Husted notes voters here have many more opportunities to vote than voters in Kentucky or Pennsylvania.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on Wednesday sided with Husted in ruling that a lower court over-reached when it ruled provisional ballots cast at the wrong precinct and those cast in the wrong location all together should be counted.

The federal court said there’s a sharp difference between “right-place/wrong-precinct” ballots, which are often attributable to poll workers directing voters to the wrong precinct, and “wrong-place/wrong-precinct”, which is often caused by voters showing up at the wrong location.

The court also wrote “The expanded injunction opens the door for steering last-second voters to convenient (though incorrect) polling places, in the hopes that some of the votes will count.

“This perverse incentive did not exist with right-place/wrong-precinct voters; voters who make the effort to arrive at the correct polling place would have no reason to miscast their vote at the wrong table or in the wrong line.”

It was not immediately clear if the voters’ rights groups that filed the original appeal would file another appeal.

Milwaukee resident Stephen Einhorn is Principal of Capital Midwest Fund, president of Einhorn Associates, and serves on the Milwaukee Art Museum’s board. He also gave $25,000 to Freedomworks for America, a conservative Political Action Committee that’s endorsed candidates such as Indiana Senatorial hopeful Richard Mourduck and Ohio state treasurer Josh Mandel.

His wife, Nancy Einhorn, serves on the board of the Milwaukee Ballet and recently gave more than $30,000 to the RNC. She’s also given over $3,000 to a couple Tea Party-backed House members in Wisconsin.

An African-American news organization, TheGrio, and an activist group, One Wisconsin Now, say they did a joint investigation to uncover the Einhorns. The couple bought 175 billboards in battleground states Ohio and Wisconsin, which were placed in largely poor, African-American neighborhoods with the phrase, “Voter Fraud is a felony” and a giant gavel.

In a statement, the Einhorns say they placed the billboards as a public service, as voter fraud undermines the democratic process. But many African-American leaders and ex-felon advocates liken it to Jim Crow tactics, meant to scare and disenfranchise certain voters.

After several weeks of outcry, the billboards were all taken down. Many have been replaced with new ones, asserting that voting is a right, not a crime.

Voter’s First, the group that wants Ohioans to approve a ballot measure that would change the way congressional and legislative district lines are drawn, is putting an ad on television stations statewide.

Voters First spokesman Brian Rothenberg says he knows the proposed citizen’s initiative plan is being outspent by Issue 2 opponents, but he still thinks the issue could win at the ballot box.

“There’s still a large amount of undecided voters. They’ve never moved from that top tier area. It’s actually got the most undecided voters in the state of Ohio. And now we are going toe to toe with these folks.”

“And when you look at the fact that our progressive base, I know the Democratic party has endorsed this in many counties, those folks are ahead on early voting when you look at the presidential election information. It actually says that we might be in a stronger position than anybody thought we were, and here we are with two weeks to go and we’ve got an excellent opportunity to win.”

The Ohio Democratic Party and unions advocating on behalf of Democratic candidates and causes are urging voters to vote for the new plan. Rothenberg won’t say how much his group intends to spend on the new ads, or who is paying for them.

Here’s the new ad:

“Well, I think the ad is extremely deceptive,” says Carlo LaParo, a spokeman for “Protect Your Vote”, the main group opposing the constitutional change.

LaParo says the ad doesn’t explain that some politicians and lobbyists would still be allowed to serve on the board that would draw the lines if voters would approve the plan.

But he doesn’t think that’s likely to happen anyway.

“The more voters hear about this deeply flawed and convoluted proposal, the less they like it.”

LaParo notes most every newspaper in the state has written editorials against the proposed amendment and he adds many interest groups are also against it.

The State Highway Patrol says the motorcycles somehow sideswiped each other on State Route 36 east of Delaware as the motorcade headed to an airport. A state trooper and a Genoa Township police officer were hurt in the crash. They were hospitalized in Columbus in stable condition.

The patrol says the police officer’s injuries were more serious than the trooper’s but weren’t life-threatening.

Mrs. Obama was not injured.

There was no formal recommendation or vote, but the Franklin County Board of Elections told its leadership to get ready for day-long early in-person voting on the Saturday before the election.

Republican board chair Doug Preisse says that will allow election workers to match early voters with precinct lists on election day.

“Most people still vote on Election Day,” Preisse says. “We’ve got to get that right, the eyes of the country are on us. There are 475-some polling places, nearly 3,000 machines out there.”

Democratic board member Zachary Manifold was disappointed the board could not agree on early voting hours up to the day before the general election.

“Unfortunately we couldn’t get an agreement on Sunday or Monday. I think at least from a democrat perspective, we agreed that in 2008 we had Sunday and Monday voting,” Manifold says.

The board of elections will send its compromise to Secretary of State Jon Husted. Husted wants local board input so he can set uniform hours for the three days in case his appeal is denied or the Supreme Court decides not to take the case.

An Obama campaign official says the first lady is scheduled Monday to stop in Cleveland and Delaware, in central Ohio. Additional details have yet to be released.

The first lady’s trip comes on the heels of President Barack Obama’s visit to the swing state. The president held an evening rally Tuesday at Ohio State University in Columbus.

Michelle Obama was in the state last week to kick off the start of early voting. During her speech at Cincinnati’s downtown convention center, she reminded people that every ballot was key in the contested state.