Dem Biden campaigns in Ohio; GOP's Ryan to visit

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden focused his lat­est cam­paign visit on the deaths of an ambas­sador and three more Amer­i­cans in an attack at the U.S. con­sulate in Libya, say­ing there’s “no place in the civ­i­lized world” for such “sense­less murder.”

The Demo­c­rat opened a rally on Wednes­day at Wright State Uni­ver­sity with a mes­sage of mourn­ing for those killed the pre­vi­ous day. He said it’s a reminder of the dan­gers faced by U.S. diplo­mats abroad.

“Let me be clear: We are resolved to bring to jus­tice their killers,” he said.

He added that the United States remains com­mit­ted to its mis­sion abroad.

“We never have been and we will not be run off. Period,” Biden said.

The vice pres­i­dent spoke to hun­dreds of peo­ple at the south­west Ohio school, where Repub­li­can then-presidential can­di­date John McCain intro­duced Sarah Palin as his run­ning mate in the 2008 race. Biden’s audi­ence included come­dian Dave Chap­pelle, who has a home in nearby Yel­low Springs.

Biden told the crowd the admin­is­tra­tion of Pres­i­dent Barack Obama is com­mit­ted to eco­nomic growth through a fair tax struc­ture that puts more money into middle-class pock­ets and encour­ages com­pa­nies to keep jobs in the United States.

“We believe what we should be doing is pro­mot­ing the pri­vate sec­tor, not the priv­i­leged sec­tor,” Biden said.

He said the admin­is­tra­tion pledges to con­tinue increas­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs in Ohio and again pointed to the rebound in the U.S. auto industry.

Repub­li­cans chal­lenged that pic­ture of eco­nomic improvement.

“What’s clear is that despite Vice Pres­i­dent Biden’s asser­tions, Miami Val­ley fam­i­lies are not bet­ter off than they were four years ago,” Chris Mal­oney, a spokesman for GOP pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mitt Rom­ney, said in an email.

Romney’s run­ning mate, Paul Ryan, also was to appear Wednes­day in Ohio. He was headed to an evening rally in Cler­mont County, east of Cincin­nati, as both cam­paigns con­tin­ued to give high pri­or­ity to the swing state.

Rom­ney was in Mans­field ear­lier this week.

Polls have indi­cated a tight race with Obama slightly ahead in Ohio, a state con­sid­ered likely to be cru­cial to Romney’s chances of unseat­ing him.

Obama car­ried Ohio in 2008 after George W. Bush had won Ohio twice.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Sep 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.