Romney, Obama descend, again, on battleground Ohio

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and Repub­li­can Mitt Rom­ney were again in the cru­cial bat­tle­ground state of Ohio on Wednes­day, with a spe­cial urgency for Rom­ney as new polling shows the pres­i­dent edg­ing ahead there less than a week before early vot­ing begins.

A day after his address to world lead­ers at the United Nations, Obama will speak at two uni­ver­si­ties in the Mid­west­ern state, hop­ing to gen­er­ate the kind of enthu­si­asm among young vot­ers that helped fuel his vic­tory four years ago. Rom­ney plans three stops in major cities dur­ing a bus tour aimed at draw­ing a con­trast with Obama on the econ­omy, which remains the top issue for vot­ers before the Novem­ber election.

Both can­di­dates in the tight race rec­og­nize how crit­i­cal Ohio’s 18 elec­toral votes will be. Los­ing the state would dra­mat­i­cally nar­row Romney’s path to the 270 state-by-state elec­toral col­lege votes required to win the White House — and no Repub­li­can has ever lost Ohio and won the presidency.

With early vot­ing set to begin in Ohio on Oct. 2, time is run­ning out.

The can­di­dates are also prepar­ing for their first of three debates next week — the next chance for Rom­ney to make a high-profile, widely broad­cast case for the presidency.

Obama’s visit marks his 13th trip to Ohio so far this year, his cam­paign said. Rom­ney has vis­ited the state 10 times since May 1, his cam­paign said, with an addi­tional seven vis­its dur­ing the ear­lier pri­mary campaign.

The pres­i­dent has the edge in Ohio six weeks out from Elec­tion Day, helped by signs of an improv­ing econ­omy. Obama has led Rom­ney in a series of recent polls in the state. A Wash­ing­ton Post poll on Tues­day showed Obama with a lead that was out­side the poll’s mar­gin of error. Even on han­dling of the econ­omy, where Rom­ney until recently has had an advan­tage, Obama now leads.

A new CBS/New York Times poll also show­ing Obama ahead in the state and ahead in Florida, which along with Ohio is the most impor­tant of the 10 or so bat­tle­ground states that will decide the elec­tion. Such states do not reli­ably vote Demo­c­rat or Repub­li­can and are the tar­get of a dizzy­ing amount of cam­paign ads.

For Rom­ney, Ohio was already chal­leng­ing because of the state’s better-than-average econ­omy. The job­less rate in Ohio stands at 7.2 per­cent — almost a full per­cent­age point lower than the national aver­age. Rom­ney and other Repub­li­cans credit Ohio’s Repub­li­can gov­er­nor, John Kasich, but the good news under­mines Romney’s pitch that Obama’s poli­cies aren’t working.

The can­di­dates exchanged attacks Tues­day over trade poli­cies with China, an issue for working-class vot­ers whose liveli­hoods have been affected by com­pe­ti­tion from Chi­nese manufacturers.

“When peo­ple cheat, that kills jobs,” Rom­ney said at an Ohio rally Tues­day. “China has cheated. I will not allow that to continue.”

In a state­ment, Obama cam­paign spokes­woman Ben LaBolt crit­i­cized Romney’s own invest­ments in Chi­nese com­pa­nies. “How can we trust Mitt Rom­ney to stand up to China when he prof­its from China break­ing the rules?” he said in a statement.

The Obama cam­paign said the pres­i­dent planned Wednes­day to high­light his record on China. The cam­paign said the pres­i­dent has brought more trade cases against China in one term than Pres­i­dent George W. Bush did in two.

The Obama admin­is­tra­tion filed a com­plaint this month with the World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion over Chi­nese sub­si­dies to its auto and auto parts indus­tries, the lat­est in a series of actions dat­ing back to 2009 to protest what U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ers say are the unfair advan­tages China gives its own companies.

Rom­ney has vowed to issue an exec­u­tive order in his first day in office label­ing China a cur­rency manip­u­la­tor, a des­ig­na­tion that would trig­ger nego­ti­a­tions between the two coun­tries and could ulti­mately lead to U.S. trade sanc­tions against China. The Obama admin­is­tra­tion has not been will­ing to take that step, which is opposed by the influ­en­tial, non-governmental U.S. Cham­ber of Commerce.

Work­ing to close the gap in Ohio, Romney’s cam­paign released a new ad Wednes­day fea­tur­ing Rom­ney speak­ing to the cam­era and acknowl­edg­ing his opponent’s good inten­tions. “Pres­i­dent Obama and I both care about poor and middle-class fam­i­lies. The dif­fer­ence is my poli­cies will make things bet­ter for them,” he says.

Obama’s cam­paign on Tues­day unveiled an ad that seeks to remind vot­ers that Rom­ney paid a lower tax rate in 2011 — just over 14 per­cent — than many middle-class fam­i­lies. The ad will air in Ohio and seven other com­pet­i­tive states.

Democ­rats worked to keep alive com­ments Rom­ney made in a secretly recorded video, released last week, about how almost half of Amer­i­cans see them­selves as vic­tims and are unwill­ing to take respon­si­bil­ity for their lives. They also dis­patched for­mer Ohio Gov. Ted Strick­land to make the case that Rom­ney is “writ­ing off the mid­dle class.”

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Sep 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.