The nation's attention has shifted from a war thousands of miles away to an economy close at home, but Keith Maupin still has his mind fixed firmly on the troops.

His son, Matt, was buried in April after being missing in action for four years in Iraq. They said goodbye at a well-attended ceremony at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

Since then, the hubbub about the war has dwindled.

Keith Maupin does not take it personally. "Most people in America, their attention span is about 30 days," he said. "Things happen in their lives. They go on about their business. If it don't hit them in the face or they don't have a dog in the fight, it really doesn't matter to a lot of them."

Ohio has given 172 of its sons and daughters to the war and an estimated $23 billion toward footing the bill. For those with a personal stake, the war still matters.

It matters to Steve Parry, a Vietnam veteran from Euclid, who protests the war and supports Barack Obama.

It matters to Tom Moe of Lancaster, who was imprisoned in Hanoi with John McCain during the Vietnam War and now supports him for president.

And, of course, it matters to Keith Maupin of Batavia, who spends his days in a strip-mall storefront packing boxes for the troops.

But for a majority of Americans, the war matters a little less than it once did. In fact, polls show it matters less now than it did just a few months ago.

In a Quinnipiac University poll in April, 22 percent of Ohioans considered the war their top issue in the presidential race. Last week, it was 8 percent.

Paul Schroeder is troubled by the public's waning interest in Iraq. Schroeder of Bay Village, near Cleveland, lost his son, Edward August "Augie" Schroeder II, in Iraq on Aug. 3, 2005, along with 13 other Marines from the Columbus-based Lima Company.

In the aftermath of his death, Rosemary Palmer, Augie's mother, ran an unsuccessful but feisty congressional primary campaign against Democrat Dennis Kucinich. The couple also co-founded the Web site "Families of the Fallen for Change," which makes the case for beginning an orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within six months.

"It's a pity the war is not more front and center because it impacts a lot of people," Schroeder said.

Experts point to plenty of reasons why Iraq dropped off the radar. First, much of the bloodshed appears to have been quelled. In October 2006, 106 U.S. troops died in Iraq. So far this month, 10 have, according to icasualties.org, an online database of casualties consisting of Defense Department data.

John Gilliom, chair of the Political Science Department at Ohio University, said voters are also focusing less on the war because they understand where the candidates stand.

"Those people who are voting on the basis of the war have already made up their minds," he said.

And then there's the economy. Ohio voters identified the economy as their top issue in April, but September's economic crisis drove the economy even more into the fore.

Paul Hackett, an Indian Hill Iraq war veteran who ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2005, said when people are faced with not being able to pay their mortgage, "Iraq becomes some distant place."

During the primary season, Obama distinguished himself among a crowded field of Democratic primary candidates by saying he was the only candidate who opposed the war from the beginning. McCain distinguished himself among Republicans by being a key congressional supporter of the surge of troops.

But with the public preoccupied about the economy, neither candidate seems to be using the war as a central theme in their campaigns. That might be hurting McCain, said Ohio State political science professor Herb Asher, because it mutes his claim that his support for the surge helped to stabilize Iraq.

"If Iraq is not on the radar screen for a lot of Americans right now, then he's not going to get the credit (for backing the surge)," Asher said.

John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, said the war will still influence how Ohio votes in November.

"It may not be the principal thing on which people are voting, but it may have a secondary effect," he said.