By Gregory Korte and Carl Weiser
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Television isn't the only air war in town anymore.

Because new television ads can take days or weeks to produce, both sides in the presidential campaign are turning to radio and newspaper ads to produce timely messages.

The Bush-Cheney campaign Monday unleashed "Optimism Ohio," a 30-second radio ad touting Friday's unemployment report, noting Ohio's economy created 1,100 new jobs in May.

Other versions of the ad will run in other states, but only where Bush, Kerry and Vice President Dick Cheney are campaigning: Colorado, Missouri and Nevada.

---

Two independent campaigns took out full-page newspaper ads Monday aimed specifically at the president's visit.

One ad, from The Media Fund, criticized Bush on the exporting of American jobs. The Media Fund's donors include international financier George Soros and insurance executive Peter Lewis.

The Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights organization that has endorsed Kerry, took out two ads noting Ohio has lost 255,000 jobs since 2001 and that 1.3 million Ohioans are without health insurance.

---

THE WEEK AHEAD: Bush's visit kicks off a busy week in local presidential politics:

• America Coming Together, an independent grassroots group trying to boost Democratic turnout, joins forces with the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers today to oppose Bush's education reform plan.

• On Friday, Kerry will visit Canton, where job losses at the Timken Co. and Hoover Co. have made it a backdrop for what the Kerry campaign calls Bush's "failed economic policies."

• Union workers from the Cincinnati Labor Council will go door-to-door starting Saturday for a "neighborhood walk" talking to union households about Kerry's economic plan.

• Kerry's Cincinnati volunteers are organizing a screening of Michael Moore's anti-Bush film Fahrenheit 9/11 at Newport-on-the-Levee next Tuesday.

---

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com and cweiser@gns.gannett.com