( CNN ) -- `` Excuse me , '' the woman called . `` Is the president still speaking ? '' `` I think so , '' I called over to her . She let her face scrunch up into an expression of mild dismay . It had nothing at all to do with politics . This was in central Ohio ; she was standing next to a furniture-delivery truck near the intersection of two streets called Sherwood and Dawson . President Barack Obama was addressing a rally on the campus of Capital University in Bexley , a few blocks away . People attending the event had jammed the residential neighborhood with their parked cars , and some of those cars were so close to her driveway , on Sherwood , that the furniture truck could not maneuver into it . `` I had this delivery scheduled , but I did n't know it would be the same time the president was here , '' she said , her voice pleasant . `` The guys from the truck are looking for another way to get it to my house . I told them I 'd stand here and guard the furniture . '' Ohio is getting plenty of visits from the candidates . During the time I was in the middle of Ohio this summer , Paul Ryan was in the area twice , Mitt Romney was there at least once , and on this early afternoon Obama had made his way to Capital . Scenes like this repeat every four years ; there are days in highly contested states when something seems almost amiss if you do n't encounter a motorcade or a police escort . They are traveling salesmen , the candidates are ; they hit the road bearing their products -- the products being themselves . And although presidential and vice presidential candidates are the most celebrated politicians in the land , they become not so different from the thousands of other sales reps who lug their sample cases across America every work week of the year . Gergen : Harsh realities for Democrats . And the people in the towns -- especially in the swing states -- find out what it 's like to be suddenly wanted , to be the recipient of exceptionally fervid sales ardor . When you are in the market for a big-ticket item -- a house ; a new car -- you notice how accommodating the real-estate agent or the car dealership is toward you : always checking back , asking what they can do to win your business , generally being constantly around and ever available . After you 've bought the item , they tend not to come calling . That 's how it is during that small sliver of time when the people running for president and vice president ca n't do enough for the potential voters . For those voters in the states that can tip the balance of an election , it can be flattering -- and also a little wearying -- to be so relentlessly courted , even while knowing that the courtship has a hard expiration date in early November . Begala : Democrats fix their enthusiasm gap . The candidates , however low on sleep and tugged in all directions , travel great distances to try to make the sale . Despite the much-vaunted reach of television commercials and social networks , they understand that , to close the deal , they had better be there in person , just like the real-estate agent or the car dealer . Because if they are n't , they know that the other real-estate agent or car dealer will be . To watch the major-party candidates move through the country in these months ... well , for all their fame , there 's more than a bit of literature 's most unforgettable salesman , Willy Loman , present : `` a man way out there in the blue , riding on a smile and a shoeshine . '' On the day Obama spoke on the campus lawn at Capital , the Secret Service and the local police had closed down Pleasant Ridge Avenue to traffic , but allowed pedestrians to slip around the barricade if they wanted to give the pizzeria one door down a little business . A local man walking with a cane , running for an office considerably less lofty than president or vice president , stopped at each of the outdoor tables and handed a leaflet to each pizza-eater , saying : `` I 'd like your vote this fall . I 'm on the ballot . '' In less than nine weeks , two of the four men crisscrossing the nation -- Obama , Romney , Ryan , Joe Biden -- are going to find out that they failed to make the sale after all , and two of the men are going to find out that they have successfully culminated the transaction . The nervous uncertainty of that is what can make their high-level pursuit at times feel utterly life-sized . Arthur Miller , in that same play in which he introduced Willy Loman to the world , understood the compulsion behind all of this quite well : . `` A salesman is got to dream , boy . It comes with the territory . '' The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene .
Bob Greene was in Ohio this summer , where presidential candidate visits were constant . He says they are like traveling salesmen who must show up if they want to close the deal . He says Ohioans get weary of the courting , even though they know it ends in November . Greene : They 're like Willy Loman : `` A salesman is got to dream , boy . It comes with the territory ''