Ohio Democrats peg Romney as 'Michigan fan' in new ad

The Ohio Democratic Party is seeking to use the longtime rivalry between Ohio State University and the University of Michigan against Mitt Romney.

The Ohio Democrats bought a full page ad in Friday's Ohio State University college newspaper, The Lantern, quoting Romney during a speech at Michigan in 2011.

"I have been a Michigan and a Wolverine fan for a long, long time," the quote in the ad reads according to mlive.com.

The ad comes just ahead of a number of campaign stops both Romney and President Obama will make in Michigan and Ohio over the next week.

Ohio Democrats have previously sought to use Romney's history with Michigan, where Romney grew up, against him. Buckeye State Democrats aired a video on local television earlier in the year featuring the former Massachusetts governor saying he's an unapologetic Michigan and Massachusetts fan.

"I grew up in Michigan, I'm sorry to tell you, so the Michigan teams have always played a big part of my sports interest, and of course now, having lived in Massachusetts for forty years, I'm a big fan of the Massachusetts teams," Romney said in the video clip. "I'm fan of the Buckeye State, let's put it that way."

Democrats aren't the only ones to use the rivalry against the opposing presidential candidate. During a campaign stop in Ohio earlier in the year, Obama attempted an Ohio State tradition in which four people line up next to each other to spell O-H-I-O. But there was some kind of miscommunication and a picture was taken with the four of them misspelling the state name. The Romney campaign quickly pounced on the picture, noting that when VP contender Paul Ryan visited a bar near Ohio State's campus, he successfully spelled out Ohio with four others.

More recently, when Obama was campaigning in Wisconsin he ran into a group of Ohio fans and spelled Ohio with them correctly, according to CNN.

---