Balance of Power

Organizing for America, the mass mobilizing drive that started with President Obama’s campaign and is now part of the Democratic National Committee, is running a new television ad in several states urging viewers to “call your senators” and needle them to vote for the health care overhaul Obama wants. And if you look at the states, it’s pretty clear who they have in mind.

The ad features four people telling their stories of how the health care system has failed them — either not giving them full coverage or dropping them completely. And at the end, they all declare that “it’s time” for a health care overhaul. One version will run on national and Washington, D.C. cable stations, but the version that tells people to “call your senators” — and includes the phone number of the Capitol switchboard — will run in Arkansas, Indiana, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Ohio.

Most of those states, not surprisingly, are the homes of the centrist Democrats who are most likely to object to the cost of an overhaul or the inclusion of a government-run plan to compete with private insurers, or both. But since Maine and Ohio are on the list, Democratic mobilizers also appear to be targeting three moderate Republican senators who could make the difference in a close vote: Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, and George V. Voinovich of Ohio. (Sherrod Brown, the other Ohio senator, is a Democrat who is a vocal supporter of the government-run plan and isn’t really on the fence.)