It snowed all day in the Cleveland area, but that hasn’t kept away crowds from outside the sports arena on the campus of Cleveland State University where Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama will debate at 9 o’clock tonight.

Clinton, who has seen her lead in Ohio polls erode, gets what may be her last chance to stop Obama’s momentum during this critical face-off that will be broadcast live nationally on MSNBC. Local NBC affiliates in Ohio are broadcasting the event simultaneously.

Given the snowy weather, it’s appropriate that students are passing out green and white foam Viking hats in honor of the university’s mascot.

And the cold didn’t stop the color guard – a bagpipe band from Parma, Ohio – from wearing kilts.

One of the cosponsors of the debate is the Committee to Re-elect Dennis Kucinich, Yes, that’s same Ohio congressman and onetime Cleveland mayor who until recently was a long-shot candidate for president. He’s also on the ballot March 4 in northeast Ohio, in a multi-candidate Democratic primary for his congressional seat.

Two of the labor unions that endorsed Barack Obama last week are putting money behind their candidate with political advertising on local TV throughout Ohio beginning today.

Both TV ads provide a soft sell on Obama’s ability to address the issue health care coverage.

Neither ad addresses Hillary Rodham Clinton’s contention that she is he only candidate advocating universal health care.

The 30-second ad by the Service Employees International Union uses a woman, described as a buyer-merchandiser, saying Obama’s plan would provide the same health care as members of Congress. A man listed as a Gulf War veteran says Obama would stand up to the pharmaceutical and insurance companies to make health care affordable.

The Ohio ad is running in most major markets in this critical primary states, according to Stephanie Mueller, a spokeswoman for the service employees union who declined to discuss how much is being spent. The union also has two other TV ads – one in Spanish – airing in Texas.

The other Ohio ad, from the Union and United Food and Commercial Workers, features a series of workers asking the question, “Can we?’’ It closes with a short spot of Obama offering his slogan, “Yes we can.’’

Here’s the SEIU TV ad:

Here’s the UFCW TV ad:

New York Jets fans will remember Keyshawn Johnson as the flashy receiver who played for the team during the mid 1990s. Now, it seems, he’s trying his hand at politics.

Johnson is listed among the surrogates who will be stumping for Hillary Clinton in the states that hold primaries on March 4th. Johnson also played a few seasons for the Dallas Cowboys, so its likely that he might be dispatched to campaign for Clinton in Texas.

Among those also serving as surrogates for Clinton, according to the campaign, are Gov. Eliot Spitzer, former Sen. John Glenn, Rep. Anthony Weiner, and entertainment stars Lily Tomlin, Mary Steenburgen, and Ted Danson.  

Sen. Joseph Robach, R-Greece, Monroe County, said yesterday that he has no plans to leave the GOP, and today Sen. John Bonacic of Orange County said he’s not going anywhere either.

“I’ve been a Republican all my life, and I don’t intend to change at this stage in my life,” Bonacic said.

Bonacic has been considered maybe the most likely Republican to switch parties if Democrats can move closer to taking control of the state Senate. Republicans hold a two-seat majority in the Senate,  going into today’s special election in the North Country.

Bonacic in late 2006 called for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno to resign after Bruno revealed he was being investigated by the FBI.

The New York Post said Monday that Bonacic was being lobbied by Democrats to switch parties if Democrats can win tonight’s special election.

Asked if he is being wooed by Democrats, Bonacic responded, “Always.”

“I got a little hot over the weekend in Cincinnati,’’ Hillary Rodham Clinton told an audience of about 500 people in a Lorain, Ohio high school gymnasium.

Clinton was referring to her pointed criticism of an Ohio mailing by Barack Obama’s campaign on her health plan that she considered to be false, misleading and discredited.

“That is not the way to run a campaign to pick the Democratic nominee for president,’’ Clinton said at today’s town hall style campaign event.

Clinton reiterated her criticism that Obama’s health plan would leave out millions of people, allowing the uninsured to show up at a hospital emergency room and pass along the cost of their treatment as “a hidden tax’’ on everyone else.

If her midday campaign stop in Lorain was a tune-up for tonight’s 9 o’clock debate between Clinton at Cleveland State University, some sparks could fly.

Lorain – an old industrial city along Lake Erie that Clinton said has problems similar the New York cities of Buffalo and Jamestown she represents – has seen its population shrink in the wake of lost jobs in steel and auto manufacturing. The local school district laid off 240 public school teachers last year because of budget problems. The city’s mayor—who has endorsed Clinton—talked about the nation’s subprime mortgage crisis and the consequent spike in home foreclosures as a reason why places such as Lorain are having problems maintaining municipal revenues.

The setting was a perfect fit for Clinton’s fine-tuned message of populist solutions for the nation’s economic probems.

Clinton spouted statistics about Ohio’s housing crisis by noting the state is ninth in the nation in foreclosures; that foreclosures in the state increased 50 percent in January to 13,000 compared to the same month a year ago; and more than 150,000 households in the state have been hit by foreclosures.

Tomorrow she will host an economic forum in central Ohio.

Lt. Gov. David Paterson got some laughs from college students today when he talked about why  the state Legislature, of which he was a veteran before joining the Spitzer administration, hasn’t passed a bottle bill that includes deposits on water bottles and other non-carbonated drinks.

“This is very simple but that would be if you were on a normal planet,” he told NYPIRG volunteers, getting smiles and chuckles from the crowd. “But you’re in Planet Albany, where sometimes there’s no gravity, sometimes there’s no atmosphere and most times there’s little thought.

“So before we discover whether there’s life on Mars or life on the moon, we have to find out if there’s life in Albany.”

NYPIRG was working the offices of state legislators in hopes of reviving failed legislation last year that would add water and juice bottles to the list of bottles that have 5-cent deposits so the bottles are more often recycled.

Senate Republicans and grocery stores have opposed the measure, in part because the state would get the revenue from the unreturned bottles, not the grocers who have to collect the bottles from consumers.

Here’s an email Democrat Darrel Aubertine just sent out to supporters encouraging them to vote today in the special election in the snowy 48th Senate District in northern New York.

He’s facing Republican Will Barclay, who Republicans around the Capitol today were expressing confidence will win the open seat and maintain the GOP’s two-seat majority.

“Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Today I ask for your help.
We are involved in a tight, tough battle that probably feels to you like it has gone on for too long. This race has been about a number of issues and you’ve seen some tough tactics.
I write today to remind you what this election is really about. It is about farmers and carpenters; bus drivers and teachers; small business people and moms and dads. It’s about us.
And that’s why I ask you to go vote, and to get as many people to the polls as you can. Please ask your friends and relatives to join you, and ask them to ask others.
The weather isn’t perfect, and I appreciate how much effort is involved. Thank you for your continued support.
With appreciation and hope for the future and for putting government in our hands.—Darrel Aubertine”

Barack Obama, who surprised Hillary Clinton by winning the Connecticut primary on Super Tuesday, continued to flex his Connecticut muscle today – receiving the endorsement of former presidential candidate Chris Dodd.

Dodd, according to an Associated Press account, said it’s time for Democrats to unite behind a single candidate to take on Republican John McCain.

“I don’t want a campaign that is divisive here, and there’s a danger in that,” Dodd said. He stopped short of saying, however, that Clinton should end her candidacy.

Connecticut’s other Senator, Democrat-turned independent Joe Lieberman has endorsed McCain in the race.

Republican candidate for Congress Kieran Michael Lalor issued a challenge to rival GOP candidate George Oros today: face him in five debates and refrain from using push polls.

Calling it the “Five for Five,” proposal, Lalor, a Peekskill resident and a veteran of the Iraq War, urged Oros to join him in one debate in each of the five counties that comprise the 19th Congressional District.

“This is what Republican voters want and they deserve to know which candidate best understands the issues that are important to regular people and not just what matters to insulated political insiders like Oros,” Lalor said in a press release.

Lalor and Oros are, at least so far, the only two Republicans to have formally entered the race against Rep. John Hall, a Democrat.

Lalor also demanded that Oros,  a Westchester legislator from Cortlandt, disavow any use of push polling. According to Lalor, Oros had questioned Republican officials in Washington, D.C. last week about the use of the controversial method polling.

Oros, the Board of Legislators’ minority leader, brushed off Lalor’s challenge as little more than an attempt to grab attention.. But Oros also said he had no intention of using push polls.

He also expressed a willingness to take part in debates, but stressed that both sides would have to agree to mutually acceptable ground rules before such events could be held.

“I am willing to debate anyone, anywhere, but they just have to be fair,” Oros said.

Former Republican state Sen. Nick Spano was in Albany today for a fundraiser for Sen. Hugh Farley and was asked about whether he will run for the Senate again this year against incumbent Democratic Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
No decision yet, Spano said, but “I think about it every day of my life about returning to the Senate.”
Spano said the outcome of tomorrow’s special election in the 48th Senate District in the North Country won’t influence his decision, and he said the presidential race without Rudy Giuliani as the GOP nominee wouldn’t affect his ability to run a strong race—that’s if he runs, of course.
“It has to be the right decision, and it has to fit into my life, into my family life and I have to make sure the support is there in Westchester to do this. And that’s what we’re evaluating,” he said.