Obama set to reach out to undecided voters
DAYTON, Ohio With just two weeks left before Election Day, President Obama launched his endgame strategy: get supporters to vote early and persuade undecideds they'll be better off supporting him.
"I want you to go vote," the president told a campaign rally crowd estimated at 9,500.
"Here in Ohio you can vote early," he said. "Here in Ohio, you can vote right after this event."
Making his 17th visit to Ohio, the state that more than any other might make the difference between a second term and defeat, Mr. Obama again slammed Mitt Romney's policies as "wrong and reckless." He repeated lines prepared for last night's third and final debate, saying Romney "is all over the map" in stating his policies.
Mr. Obama again spoke of his Republican opponent as suffering from "Romnesia," the made-up affliction the president uses to ridicule Romney and accuse him of deliberately moderating his policy positions from the far right toward the center.
"If you don't remember positions that are on your website," Mr. Obama said of Romney, you've got "Romnesia."
"He's doing all he can to hide his true positions and tell us what he thinks you want to hear," Mr. Obama added.
The Romney campaign responded by accusing Mr. Obama of engaging in "increasingly desperate attacks."
"Mitt Romney has a real plan for a real recovery that will create 12 million new jobs with rising take-home pay, move us toward a balanced budget and create prosperity for all Americans." said Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams.
Mr. Obama on Wednesday morning launches a two-day, round-the-clock, eight-state campaign blitz that includes a stop Thursday in his hometown of Chicago, where he'll become the first sitting president to cast an early vote for himself.
He will criss-cross the nation campaigning in six swing states: Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Virginia and Ohio. He also has a stop scheduled in Califonia to tape another appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," his third appearance as president.
Mr. Obama will spend Wednesday night aboard Air Force One heading from Nevada to Florida for his first domestic red eye flight. The presidential 747 provides nearly all the comforts of home, including a bedroom in the nose of the aircraft.
Mr. Obama will use his trip to appeal to supporters not to wait until Election Day to cast their ballots. And once they've voted, he wants them to spend their remaining time persuading uncommitted voters to re-elect him.
To that end, the Obama campaign unveiled a TV ad Tuesday citing the priorities Mr. Obama says will be part of his agenda in a second term.
In addition, his campaign is printing 3.5-million copies of a 20-page magazine-style booklet, further describing Mr. Obama's policy proposals if he wins another 4 years in office.
The Romney campaign was quick to dismiss the ad and the booklet as "no substitute for a real agenda for America."
Romney campaign policy director Lanhee Chen accuses the president of re-proposing policies "that have already proven ineffective" and of repeating "discredited allegations against Governor Romney."
"You can't fool the American people into thinking you have a real plan for the future when all you are offering is more of the same," Chen said in a written statement provided to reporters.
As part of his upcoming campaign trip, Mr. Obama will personally reach out to undecided voters with phone calls from Air Force One. Campaign press secretary Jen Psaki also said Mr. Obama will make stops to meet with undecided voters as well.
Under Federal Election Commission rules, the Obama campaign must reimburse the government for the political use of Air Force One, but neither the campaign nor the White House will divulge the precise amounts owed for each trip.
Popular in Politics
- Obama on NSA programs: Americans "not getting the complete story" 131 Comments
- Snowden: U.S. gov't destroyed my chance for fair trial 292 Comments
- McCain demands answers from Obama on "secret" email accounts 94 Comments
- Supreme Court strikes down Arizona voting law 691 Comments
- Amnesty Int'l calls for arrest of George W. Bush
- On Syria, U.S. and Russia have different perspectives, says Obama
- Obama in Europe for G8 as Syria crisis looms large
- Report: Obama's Africa trip could cost $60-100 million
===
I didn't expect Romney's own policy director to be so critical of Romney's "more of the same plan".
-------------------------------------------------------
Yeah and Romney's prophet, Joseph Smith, used a magic glass to find some gold plates that were buried in NY 1000 years before Columbus discovered America.
And BTW, Romney repeatedly used the idiotic line that Iran is four years closer to having nuclear weapons. Why not go further and say that Iran is now 30 years closer to having nuclear weapons and include the 20 Reagan/Bush administrations? It would be just as accurate (If Iran does indeed ever acquire nuclear weapons).
The economy is what everyone is focused on, but that's the wrong thing to look at. The US economy remains one of the strongest in the world, and a full recovery is dependent on the economic climate. Many economists and industrial analysts predict a full recovery by 2015, regardless of who is in the White House.
So the question is, who do you want to get credit? And who do you want to be elected for the next 12 years?
On the one hand, you have the guys who believe corporations are people, who want to scrap environmental regulations, scrap minimum wage, want to scrap Roe V. Wade and make their personal religious values the law of the land.
On the other, you have those who back environmental protection, back living wages, back equality, women's rights, and religious freedom. They believe in government for the people, by the people.
Don't get this wrong, America!
The fact is, if you want a real job, not a part-time job and the freedom to keep your hard-earned money when you become successful, instead of having the government take it away, then vote for Romney.
If you are a dead beat and want someone to elevate you financially, without you have to work for it, at all, and then give you a bunch of freestuff, vote for Obama.
atx, grow up and educate yourself. Corporations have been people since the Romans. It's not a Republican invention, you twit.
BTW,
Hardly. For most of the past 4 years China and Europe have been considerably stronger. Canada too if you count them. And what is strength? You mean the trillions pumped into stocks and corprorations with tax payer dollars to make it look like a recovery. People know what they know. And what they know is that wages are down, work hours are longer, taxes are up, inflation is up, it's harder to make ends meet.
That's what they're focused on.
All those other things are important too but that's what the fear mongers on the left said about Regan and none of that happened. We just got a stronger economy.
And if you're a senior on a fixed income...why would you vote for 4 more years of the same economic polcy? Do you enjoy 0.5% interest savings rates?
Obama was a two term senator without any executive experience. People gave him a break. But learning on the job at my expense is no longer an option. He had his chance. It's not working. I'm not going to sit around until 2015 to find out spend and tax doesn't fix an economy. The majority of economists out there will tell you that but here we are facing a massive debt to payoff and still a crummy economy and higher cost of living.
Time to try a new approach from someone with at least some experience dealing with these problems. If I was hiring the most qualified personn for the job, it wouldn't be Obama (esp now with his track record).
All there is on the front page is today's new about the Obama campaign with glowing narratives and glossy pictures. If I want today's news about Romney, what do I have to do -- I have to click on the article about Obama and there's a little thumbnail in the upper corner of Romney also reaching out to undecideds. Certainly coverage of the other major candidate deserves to be headlinesd the main section as headline news don't you think -- instead what's there stories about menengitis, Obama campaign (2 news items about Obama with glowing headlines) news, stocks, netflix, and more stupid stories.
No mention of today's news for the Romney campaign anywhewre. I thought perhaps the CBS polls were less bias than others but I can see, per the presentation and emphasis of Obama campaign onh the front page, that Viacom is just as bad as ABC and MSNBC.
There appears to be a bunch of cronies at CBS too.