The Ohio Democratic Party’s annual statewide dinner began just hours after a possible contender declined to run in the 2014 governor’s race.

As Democrats from across the state gathered in Columbus for their annual Legacy Dinner, they were still absorbing the news that Youngstown area Congressman Tim Ryan will not be running for governor next year.

“I think he could have won,” said Dem. State Rep. Bob Hagan. “I think it’s going to be a tough campaign – we needed someone that can shout and can scream and get people up on their feet and I think he can do that. On the other hand, I’m disappointed because, in a selfish way, I was going to run for Congress myself in his seat.”

Dave Betras is the Mahoning County Democratic Party chair, and had been a big Ryan backer.

Betras: “I’m glad he’s staying where he is, and he’s young – he’s 39 years old. So you’ll see him on the statewide ticket someday.”

Reporter: “Do you think this race is locked up for Ed FitzGerald now, or…”

Betras: “I publicly am supporting Ed FitzGerald, and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Ed FitzGerald wins.”

Cuyahoga County executive Ed FitzGerald is so far the only Democrat to form an exploratory committee.

Sandra Wise of Fremont says she’s still holding out hope that former attorney general Richard Cordray might come into the race, even though he’s nominated to head up the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“I am, I’ve always been a fan of his. Truly. I do not know FitzGerald that well, but I’m sure he’s going to gravitate toward Sandusky County and show us what he’s all about.”

And there’s also northeast Ohio’s Betty Sutton, who lost a bid to keep her seat in Congress in November.

“I am in the final stages of my decision process and I’ll be making an announcement soon,” Sutton says.

Sutton wouldn’t say whether Ryan’s choice not to run plays a role in her decision.

Ryan himself wasn’t at the dinner, though he had been scheduled to speak. That left FitzGerald, the last speaker on the program, as the sole headliner.

After the speech, FitzGerald admitted that Ryan’s decision does make his way toward the Democratic nomination for governor easier.

“I’ve been seriously exploring it, and the more people that decline the race, probably the better for me.”

And the Republicans have been waiting for him. The Ohio GOP launched a website that seeks to connect FitzGerald to the sprawling Cuyahoga County corruption scandal which ensnared more than 50 Democrats.

Matthew Henderson from the Ohio Republican Party.

“We believe Ohioans have a right to know exactly what went on in as it’s so called Public Official 14, Mr. FitzGerald’s shadowy past,” said Matthew Henderson from the Ohio Republican Party.

“And we believe folks should know about that. It’s very early in the game for him to be keeping secrets,” Henderson said.

FitzGerald says his background contradicts what the Republicans are claiming, and so does the US Attorney.

“Look, they are very worried and they are very desperate. But to try to claim that a former prosecutor, former FBI agent is somehow part of some nefarious scheme is pretty lame.”

FitzGerald says he doesn’t yet have a date for a formal announcement, but says “the sooner the better.”

Ohio Democratic Party chair Chris Redfern estimates both major party candidates will spend $55 million, so he’s hoping for a race without a primary – but says he did not ask Ryan to step aside.

“Right-to-work” laws were passed last year in Michigan and Indiana , and the Workplace Freedom Act could be headed for an upcoming Ohio ballot. Backers says it’s about choice; organized labor calls it blatant union busting.

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It’s here, on the side of State Route 315 near the Ohio State University campus, that unions have taken their fight against the “right-to-work” proposal with two attention-getting billboards: One with the words “Workplace Freedom Act” over a Soviet hammer and sickle, the other with a skull and crossbones telling drivers “Workplace Free Act Poisons Workers.”

Dan Kirk is president of a local Teamsters office and traveled to Michigan to rally against the “right-to-work” proposal there.

If ‘right-to-work’ comes in, it destroys the working family. Wages are cut, benefits are cut, working conditions are cut. It’s a long list of things, and it doesn’t matter what union you’re in.

Several Ohio unions have contributed to Keep Ohio’s Heritage, a political action committee formed last year to fight ‘right-to-work.’ It raised about $20,000 in the final half of 2012.

As unions continue their campaign against the proposal, the campaign for banning mandatory union dues rolls along.

The new television ad comes from the political action committee Ohioans for Workforce Freedom. Home builders, business groups, and others who could benefit from weaker unions have donated more than $130,000 to the PAC.

Strategist Chris Littleton leads the effort. He also led the landslide victory for a 2011 state constitutional amendment designed to let Ohio opt-out of health care mandates. He’s confident supporters will collect the nearly 400,000 signatures by July to get “right-to-work” on the November ballot.

We know what the people feel on this, we know what they want, we know what their desire is. So all we want to do is get it to the ballot and let them decide.

The most recent polls seem to support Littleton: A survey by Quinnipiac University last year found 54 percent of Ohio voters think workers should be able to opt out of unions. Forty percent oppose making union membership optional.

Ohio State University sociologist Andrew Martin studies organized labor. He says Southern states have long liked “right-to-work,” but Northern industrial states like Ohio initially rejected it.

“There was some effort to get ‘right-to-work’ laws passed, but they weren’t as successful. Now there is a renewed effort in states like Michigan, like Ohio, like Indiana, to get that passed.”

While Democrats are united in their opposition to “right-to-work,” the issue divides conservatives. As gung-ho Tea Party groups gather signatures, more-moderate Republicans don’t want a repeat of their Senate Bill 5 defeat. Governor John Kasich says “right-to-work” is not a priority for him.

Conservative strategist Chris Littleton says he knows why.

Who from the established political world likes the idea of getting involved with unions? Unions are unbelievably strong, they’re very influential, they’re very powerful, they spend a lot of money.

Another group of Littleton’s, the Ohio Liberty Coalition, has openly mocked Kasich and many other Republicans for ignoring the issue.

However much the two sides spend gathering signatures and in an ensuing ad war, it likely will pale in comparison to the Senate Bill 5 campaign, where combined spending surpassed $40 million.

Communities say the costs of protecting those candidates are adding up.

The campaigns have been in Ohio so much for the last few weeks that some have joked they’re almost part-time residents. Gov. John Kasich took that and ran with it when he was asked about the almost non-stop stumping last month.

They’ve been here so much I’m wondering if they should start paying some income tax like sports figures do. You ever thought about that? Maybe I ought to get Romney and Obama to pay a little money to us, as much as they’re here.

But the costs are no joke to some communities, many of which are still reeling from big cuts from the state to the local government fund.

The Obama campaign has made at least 28 visits to Ohio this year as of October 26 – the Romney campaign has made at least 47 stops in Ohio, some of those before the March primary when he was still running against Rick Santorum. And those numbers don’t include visits by their running mates, their wives and other surrogates.

Both have been to Bowling Green – Obama in September, Romney in July. The candidates rented facilities, but didn’t pay the costs associated with the city’s safety forces.

Bowling Green public information officer Lori Trotter says those added up to more than $3,800 for Obama’s visit, and $1,600 for Romney’s.

“Certainly in these times, any budget considerations are significant. Our city has seen a, been challenged, just as many have. I wouldn’t call them budget-busters, but certainly a consideration for us always. We always try to keep an eye on overtime and for our costs,” Trotter says.

Central Ohio has been a popular stop – Obama and Romney have made at least 17 appearances in Franklin County and the six counties surrounding it. And Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott says he wants some help. So he sent invoices to the campaigns.

I think I sent President Obama for $49 – almost $50,000. Mitt Romney was, I want to say $26,000. You know, it starts adding up.

Scott, who’s a Democrat running for re-election, says the costs to the sheriff’s office are running above $100,000 to provide security for both campaigns. Scott says he sent bills to Secret Service, he was told that federal law says Secret Service isn’t responsible for those costs. He then billed the campaigns, and he says he was told that he should bill Secret Service.

Scott says he wasn’t holding his breath, but hoped to send a message to the candidates.

When you look at candidates that raise millions upon millions upon millions of dollars, it would be helpful if they help out local economies when it puts a burden on the law enforcement to look out for them.

That was the attitude of the mayor of Mansfield, a city that’s been in fiscal emergency for two years. Republican Tim Theaker sent a bill $21,552.03 to the Obama campaign for a visit in August.

Portage County Commissioner Tommie Jo Marsilio also wanted to bill the Obama campaign. The Republican County Commissioner had hoped to send an invoice for nearly $3,000 for the president’s September visit to Kent – the first visit to Kent by a sitting president in more than 40 years.

“My thought process was – look, we don’t have an extra thousand dollars to contribute to something like this. So we’re happy to do it, we’re very proud of our own here, but we just don’t have the money to shell out for a political anything. We just don’t,” Marsilio says.

The Portage County Commissioners decided against sending the invoice.

Ohio’s three major cities have all hosted campaign events. Hamilton County is very much in play this year, and there have been four visits to Cincinnati by the presidential candidates since June. The city estimates the three Obama visits racked up more than $23,000 in extra costs, while the one Romney visit totaled well more than $14,000, and a spokesperson says the city has not been reimbursed.

The cities of Columbus and Cleveland have said they’re not tallying the totals in overtime and other expenses that the campaigns have cost them.

With Ohio still a big factor in this election, the overall bills can’t be totaled up yet.

The Democratic president made a bus tour across northern Ohio over two days earlier this month, and has had rallies in Cleveland and Columbus since officially kicking off his re-election bid in May.

Republican challenger Mitt Romney has also made recent Ohio visits, including a stop in Cincinnati last month.

The swing state figures to be pivotal in the November election.

Obama carried Ohio in 2008.

In the 1830’s the founder of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith Jr., facing persecution, fled upstate New York. He and his followers settled in the Northeast Ohio community of Kirtland. Professor David Howlett teaches the history of religions including Mormons at Bowdoin College in Maine. Howlett says Joseph Smith Jr. was drawn to Ohio.

“Ohio seems now to be the place to go because there are these people who are receptive in what today is Cleveland, and they’ve made converts among them. They’ve almost doubled their membership by those new converts, so it seems to be Joseph Smith feels that God is calling him and his people to go there,” says Howlett

Howlett says Kirtland, about 20 miles east of Cleveland became a vital link to the Mormon faith. It’s where members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe Smith had a vision of how to organize the church. And Howlett says not many Ohioans know that Smith built the first Mormon temple in this state.

“I think they’re aware of a Mormon presence today, but I think even most Ohioans would be surprised that the very first Mormon temple is not in Utah it is in Northern Ohio. It’s still there. It is the original temple, the only temple Joseph Smith built in his own lifetime and completed,” says Howlett.

Today the Kirtland Temple is owned by followers of the Reorganized Latter Day Saints or who have been known since 2001 as Community of Christ members. They formed the new church after Joseph Smith Junior left Ohio for Nauvoo, Illinois. The RLDS members broke away from the Mormons initially because of their opposition to polygamy. There also were disagreements over who should lead the church. Some who did not leave Ohio became Reorganized LDS members.

In Central Ohio today about 14,000 people belong to the Mormon Church. Their 8 meeting houses are divided into 4 stakes, or groups of congregations. Brad Welling is a stake president in Columbus. He says the basis of the Mormon faith mirrors other Christian faiths.

“We believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and that all mankind will be saved through their obedience to Jesus Christ laws and commandments and through their faith in Jesus Christ,” says Welling.

Mormons don’t believe in the traditional Christian Trinity… that God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are one. They also follow The Book of Mormon which focuses on God’s dealings with the people who lived in the Americas between 600 BC and 400 AD.

Mormon Church historian Ernie Shannon of Columbus says there are still misunderstandings about today’s Mormons because of the faith’s polygamous roots.

“We stopped living that in 1890 and so it’s been more than 100 years since polygamy was part of the church. There’s no one living today who has ever practiced polygamy,” says Shannon.

Columbus Mormons built a temple on the West side of the city in 1999. It’s only the second Latter-Day Temple built in Ohio. It is used for special services like marriages and family eternity seal ceremonies. Mormons who want to use the Temple must be in good standing with the church by following the Ten Commandments, tithing, and getting a recommendation or a pass to enter.

Stake President Brad Welling says while the church does not take a position on politics, the candidacy of Mitt Romney who is a Mormon should not be hindered because of his religion.

“People are more interested in who I think can be a good President than what their faith is. I think that the character of a person and how faithful they are to what they believe is important as well,” says Welling.

That was one of the surprises from Wednesday’s deadline to file to run for Ohio’s congressional and legislative seats. Chris Redfern says he hopes to retain his position with party leadership if he wins a seat. He previously represented a district near Lake Erie.

Wednesday also brought the number of Democrats hoping to represent Franklin county’s new urban 3rd Congressional district to four: Columbus city councilwoman Priscilla Tyson, former Ohio House Minority Leader Joyce Beatty, former U.S. Representative Mary Jo Kilroy, and current Ohio Representative Ted Celeste.

As predicted, Republican Reps. Steve Austria and Mike Turner will face off in a primary to represent the new 10th Congressional district. Democrats Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich will compete in a primary race to represent the revamped Lake Erie-hugging 9th district.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich also bucked some speculation by turning in enough signatures to get his name on Ohio’s primary ballot.