What in the world is happening in Ohio? What seemed like a safe state for Barack Obama has turned belly-up for him as crowds are surging for Mitt Romney. Romney spoke at the Shelby County Fairgrounds Wednesday night with temperatures barely above freezing, and instead of the expected crowd of 1,000 people, more than 8,500 people turned out to hear him.

Romney gave a new mantra for the crowd to chant as he said that Barack Obama’s crowds were screaming “Four more years.” Romney asserted, “I’ve been looking at my calendar and I think ‘four more weeks’ is more appropriate.”

This prompted the crowd to break into cheers of “Four more weeks, four more weeks!”

Romney was succinct in his speech, outlining the case against Obama:

“The median income in this country has dropped by $4,300 per family. And with median income around 50 thousand bucks, that’s a huge drop.”

He pointed out that health care premiums are up $2,500, while Obama promised they would drop by $2,500.

Gasoline prices?  “Double since he’s been president, or more.”

Then Romney got the audience laughing, then cheering:

“These are tough times. The president’s answer to this is to say he’s going to save Big Bird. My view is it’s better to have a president that’s going to save the American family and help people across this country.”

Romney then talked about his differences with Obama:

“We both care very deeply about helping the middle class of America and helping get people out of poverty and into the middle class. Our process for doing that couldn’t be more different. I want to lower taxes on small business … I will not cut the military. Our military must be second to none.”

Romney spoke of eliminating the estate tax, so farms could be passed down within a family, his support for energy independence, his intention to double the number of licenses for drilling on federal land with concomitant drilling in Alaska,  and reducing federal spending to balance the federal budget.

Chris Gibbs, chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party, was blown away by the efficiency of the Romney team: “The Romney team was meticulous in organizing, and the ability to put on a production like this in such a short amount of time is fantastic.” The line was so long that it was several deep the whole length of the fairgrounds and most of the racetrack.