WASHINGTON -- When Sen. Hillary Clinton had a good night in Ohio last week, so did the state's Democratic governor, Ted Strickland.
Strickland emerges from the primary season with a brighter shine than his fellow Clinton supporters in Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley and Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski.
Like O'Malley and Mikulski, Strickland traversed his state, appearing at rallies and events for the New York senator.
But unlike them, Strickland - a former congressman whose 2006 election ended two decades of Republican dominance in the state capital of Columbus - can claim to have helped deliver an important, diverse state into Clinton's win column.
A television commercial he appeared in was "a straightforward attempt to see whether Strickland can transfer his popularity to Clinton," according to the Columbus Dispatch. "Strickland has a job-approval rating of 56 percent in Ohio, and he is highly regarded by Ohio Democrats."
Other key Clinton victories have come with the assistance of influential political allies.
In Massachusetts, Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston provided a vital counterweight to Sen. Ted Kennedy's high-profile endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama. Menino's troops went to work for Clinton, and Massachusetts went for her, becoming one of the more surprising stories from last month's Super Tuesday contests.
With Pennsylvania looming as the next big contest, Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a former prosecutor and mayor of Philadelphia, is lending his considerable muscle to the effort.
"The Clinton campaign is smart to lean on locals and people who know the state," Rendell said on CNN last week. "Governor Strickland did an enormous job for Senator Clinton in Ohio. And former mayor of San Antonio, Henry Cisneros, did a great job in Texas."
It's a recipe that Hillary Clinton was hoping to replicate in Maryland.
But it didn't work out that way.
The Clinton campaign wanted a boost from O'Malley and Mikulski. A victory here on Feb. 12 would have meant that Obama's 11-contest consecutive win streak never would have started.
Instead, she fell to Obama 61 percent to 36 percent.
O'Malley was elected twice as mayor of Baltimore, a hard-edged city where the sport of politics sometimes eclipses the Orioles in popularity, and he's long been considered an up-and-comer in national Democratic circles. Mikulski is one of the most popular figures in state politics, with an approval rating that has hovered around 70 percent.
