To win Pennsylvania, Obama needs more than just Philly

John Biondi and Lisa Ragazzini, owners of "Witch Flavor?" ice cream shop in Beaver, Pennsylvania.

/ CBS News/Brian Montopoli

(CBS News) BEAVER, Pennsylvania - Ice cream shop owner Lisa Ragazzini got a taste of the "magic" emanating from President Obama when he stopped by a bakery in this small town north of Pittsburgh earlier this month.

"He's so charismatic and everything, so I can see how people get caught up in that," said Ragazzini, who left her white-collar job to co-found "Witch Flavor?" with partner John Biondi last year.

But charisma, she says, isn't enough.

"We want to grow our business and eventually become a big corporation, but I just don't see how it's going to happen with insuring our children until they're 35," she said, a reference to the mandate in the health care law allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance policy until age 26. "Whatever happened to when you're 18 you're out? Come on, kids. We raised you, we put you in college, sink or swim on your own. I'm just tired of band aids, band aids, band aids."

Biondi added that while he isn't "overly impressed with Mitt Romney," the presumptive Republican nominee is better than the incumbent.

"I am not the wealthiest man in the world, I am not the poorest man in the world, I am somewhere in between," he said. "And I see the complete redistribution of wealth as a horrible thing for the entire country."

President Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 620,000 votes in the 2008 election, largely on the strength of his performance in and around Philadelphia: He won Philadelphia County by nearly 480,000 votes and the surrounding swing areas by roughly another 200,000 votes. His performance in the region, which holds about 40 percent of the state population, made what happened in the rest of the state close to irrelevant.

Yet after nearly four years in office, there are big questions over whether Mr. Obama can even come close to repeating that performance. It appears unlikely that African-Americans and young voters, who powered Mr. Obama's big margins in 2008, will come out in the same numbers that they did last time around; a Pew Research Center last month found that, nationally, 60 percent of younger voters are giving a lot of thought to the election, a drop from 71 percent in 2008. A drop in voter enthusiasm in places like Philadelphia County - which is 44 percent African-American - puts the state's 20 electoral votes very much in play.

CBS News

"He's not going to do that well this year," Jon Delano, the Money & Politics Editor at CBS affiliate KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, said in reference to Mr. Obama's 2008 performance in Philadelphia. Delano said that the decisive factor in who wins the state, in addition to turnout in and around Philadelphia, will be how Mr. Obama performs in areas around Pittsburgh - places like Beaver County, which Mr. Obama lost in 2008.

Mr. Obama wasn't supposed to lose Beaver and the counties around it, steel-industry strongholds full of working-class, unionized white voters who have long leaned Democratic. Yet he alienated many in the 2008 cycle when it was revealed he had claimed that working-class voters in Pennsylvania "cling to guns or religion" as a result of economic hardship. The comment prompted one man at an Obama rally in Beaver to show up with a fully-loaded gun prominently displayed in a holster.

"The social values of Democrats in western Pennsylvania tend to be different than the social values back east," said Delano. "They tend to be conservative. We like our guns very much - we love our guns. We grew up hunting. Some tend to be Bible thumpers. And candidate Obama was dissing people for their religion and their guns."

While Beaver County tends to be socially conservative, according to Air Force pilot and Beaver resident Andy Thompson, "Folks here tend to be fiscally less conservative." That creates an opening for Mr. Obama at a time when the national focus is squarely on the economy.

Romney "doesn't really care about middle-class people, he doesn't care about working people. He has his money already," said William Lasenburg, an unemployed salesman in Pittsburgh who is strongly backing the president.

Terri Bostard, who works in accounting and lives in the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, said she remains undecided between the two candidates.

"I don't think that Romney is necessarily in touch with the middle class, but on the other hand when you look at what's occurred in the past four years, I don't really think we've seen any progress either," said Bostard. "I don't necessarily think it's Obama's fault, but I don't think the nation as a whole has made any progress."

Romney will campaign in Pittsburgh on Tuesday and in Toledo, Ohio, on Wednesday in an effort to attract voters like Bostard with a message of economic competence. Swing voters around Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania are at least somewhat open to that message, according to Christopher Borick, a political scientist at Muhlenberg College.

"They're probably going to give Romney a decent look," he said. "They're not anti-Obama but they're not sold on him. So they're in play."

"At the end of the day, there are still question marks about the president," Borick added. "They could still vote for him again. But if there's a lot of questions and nagging doubts about economic direction and security, they might opt out."

The Obama campaign, meanwhile, is seeking to align the president with working class voters while defining Romney as too out of touch to understand their economic struggles.

"I think the strategy is that they're trying to identify with middle class people," said Delano. "And to separate Mitt Romney as some ultra-wealthy society boy who's never known what it's like to work for a living, and keeps his money overseas, and has multiple cars and vacation homes."

Pennsylvania has both one of the oldest populations and the highest percentage of college students in the nation, and both groups are expected to be disproportionately affected by a new state law pushed through by Republicans mandating that voters present valid photo identification at the polls. Republicans say the measure was needed to prevent voter fraud despite a lack of evidence that significant voter fraud has taken place in the past; Democrats say the law is designed to suppress Democratic turnout. Last month, Mike Turzai, the Republican majority leader in the Pennsylvania statehouse, said flatly that the law "is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania."

More than 9.2 percent of Pennsylvania voters - in excess of 758,000 - lack state photo identification cards, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Some will be able to present alternate forms of identification, such as student identification cards that include expiration dates. Statistician Nate Silver of the New York Times estimates that the law will "reduce turnout by about 2.4 percent as a share of registered voters," resulting in a reduction in "President Obama's margin against Mitt Romney by a net of 1.2 percentage points." 

Chris Johnson, owner of the Pittsburgh Pasty Factory, seeks sales in Market Square.

/ CBS News/Brian Montopoli

Yet Mr. Obama remains the favorite in the state: Polls show him with a roughly 8 percentage point lead over Romney. That's due in part to the fact that Democrats have a voter registration advantage in excess of one million voters. Democrats say that they will also benefit from a superior get-out-the-vote operation in the state and anger among suburban women over Republican positions on women's health issues.

Republicans, meanwhile, are pouring money into Pennsylvania in hopes of ending their streak of five straight presidential losses. They say Romney's moderate image and focus on economic issues makes him a strong candidate to peel off some of the independent-minded suburban voters who backed Mr. Obama in 2008, and are buoyed by the fact that their party took control of the state legislature and the governorship two years ago. While Pennsylvania's 7.4 percent unemployment rate is below the national average, polls show Mr. Obama's job approval rating in the state is below 50 percent, with voters effectively split on whether he deserves reelection.

For Republicans, winning Pennsylvania means converting voters like Chris Johnson, owner of the Pittsburgh Pasty Factory. On a sweltering July day, the Moon Township resident stood behind a booth in Pittsburgh's Market Square hawking pasties - meat and vegetarian pies - to professionals on their lunch break.

"I created my product for the idea that we're in a recession, and people aren't going to have money to eat out," he said. Johnson campaigned for Mr. Obama in 2008 - knocking on doors to generate support - but he doesn't plan to do so this year.

Despite his lack of enthusiasm for the president, however, Johnson still plans to back him in November.

"Given the choice of Obama or Romney, I'm definitely going to vote Obama," he said. "If nothing else because he's far more personable."

This is the latest in a series on CBSNews.com examining the key factors and the people in the swing states that will decide the presidency.

More:

In Nevada, Obama must overcome miserable economy

A battle for women in a changing Colorado

[srjmsbnd]

SOS (Same Old Story)the SOS that I have been hearing since 1968 where I have been presented questions of the lesser of two evils. Which has seen the country go through 9 presidents, which as the Roman Republic and Empire, since the death of Julius Caesar (JFK) all too many consuls, of the petty ambitions of those driven by money and power, for money and power rather than what is true, just, right, correct and proper rather than what untrue, unjust, not right, incorrect and improper in a life time of choices in the lesser of two evils.

Where just today I began again a new pleading addressed to President Obama and Mitt Romney:

Do what is good for all the people HANG THE BANKERS OR HANG YOURSELVES, KICK THE BANKER MONEY CHANGERS OUT OF THE AMERICAN TEMPLE, or fall on your swords like good little soldiers and stop acting like whiny cowards!:

As for all my fellow Americans of the 48 something comments which preceded me I see nothing less than a rhetorical Civil War in which the common folks have been dragged into because of those petty ambitions of those driven by money and power for money and power rather than what is true, just, right, correct and proper as in all of my life time I have never been presented with anything more than the lessor of two evils.

Where we are lead one way or another way without change is the end of democracy, the republic and the nation for which one can only hear the cries of the common man as the rich and powerful continue in their pursuits on behalf of the rich and powerful.

Where then we can begin first by asking then what?

[syofie]

The Biondi's, unfortunately, are full of bull and our Repubicon plants. In addition, they are misrepresenting the facts regarding the Affordable Care Act, etc.

[Misanthrope-Obama]

To win Pennsylvania, Obama needs more than just Philly

What he really needs a different record as president to win.
They one he has will sink him like a lead ballon.
Absolute worst un-American and un-patriotic poser to the office of the president ever.
The real Manchurian Candidate and Marxist Moron.
He makes Carter and Clinton look like Conservatives.

[phillyfanaticoldtimer]

The lies about BAIN, the smears of the DNC against MItt, and what is more important: every failed policy that Bama and the Reid Senate forced on America, Pa.,NJ like Obamacare, 3 scandals, no energy policy except failed Solyndra green baloney, The Chevy Volt fraud which has had zero effect and minus sales in dollars, more taxes, regs, spending than any other Prez in our history except for FDR and a guy who just ended WORKFARE FOR WELFARE. Yikes. Why would Pa. or any other state want this naif in the WH or any Congressional Dem.

[jmn122736]

by Sam2012go July 17, 2012 9:03 AM EDT
Zionism?"

Second, our economy under George Bush was devastated by the worst man-made and worst natural disasters to ever hit this country: 9/11 and Katrina. But he pulled our country together and got us back up and running. Obama, on the other hand, is the master of dividing all groups against each other, and trying to get all of us who are striving to move upward to hate all those above us.

We can't survive four more years.
--------------------------------------

Sam2012go;
Lets examine your assertions one at a time:

"Our economy under George Bush was devastated by the worst man-made and worst natural disasters to ever hit this country: 9/11 and Katrina."
-----------------
The greatest expense caused directly by 911, (except for the loss of life) was the cost of three buildings, mostly to private owners who were covered by insurance. The most devastating costs resulted from the mishandling of the Iraqi fiasco; you know the one that he lied the country into.

AS for Katrina Just read the headlines at the time about his handling of that catastrophe.

And last, but not least, you said: "He has run up a grater debt in four years than George Bush did in eight. And now we have to pay the RUSSIANS to take us into space since he ended our space program."
----------------------

Actually after the Bush Cheney disaster America can no longer afford to fund NASA because it is much less costly to pay Russia to "take us into space"
.......... Under President Bush, The national debt went from $5,807,463,412,200.06 (trillion) on September 30, 2009 (the last fiscal year of the Clinton administration budget>>>>>To $11,909,829,003,511.70 (trillion) on September 30, 2001 (the last fiscal year of the Bush administration budget). An increase of 205% ($6,102,365,591,311.64), all due to cutting taxes (revenue) while increasing spending and borrowing money to sustain the economy.

The unemployment rate went from 4.2% in December 2000 to 7.2% in December 2008, a 171% increase.

By 2009 the economy was headed (like an avalanche) into a second great depression.
It took nearly $3 trillion in stimulus spending (mostly borrowed) during the present administration to limit it to the serious recession it presently is.
$2 trillion of the Nearly $5 trillion debt increase during this administration is the interest paid on the accumulated debt

[sandy 1027]

There has been a lot of talk of the president "redistributing wealth", but in actual policies, what has he done, or proposed, that fits that bill? Whether one likes his health care plan or not, at its essence, it forces people to be responsible for their own health care, and penalizes those who refuse to do so, but can afford it_ the same as Romney's.Many things that he is being blamed for are not his fault_ or not solely his fault. We have had an obstinate, negligent Congress that is equally to blame ( and in some ways more to blame for our overall sluggish economy because they actually control the purse strings of the country.The economy was never going to turn around in a couple of years time because of the deep hole that we were in when the president took office, but there are proactive things that Congress could have done _ and could do even now__to make things better, but chose not to because the president proposed them-even when some were based on GOP ideas or precedence).Much is made of the fact that, technically, more people are on food stamps now than any time in history; but what never gets said is that that is just barely true.Only a fraction separates the number of people on food stamps now, from when George W. Bush was in office.As for unemployment payments,employers pay unemployment benefits into the system as an insurance so that workers have something to fall back on if laid-off/fired, so the recipients aren't just "taking" money from the government.There are those who have exhausted their benefits, and may still receive some form of aid, but our economic problems are second only to the Great Depression in their severity, so from a practical standpoint, what do we do with families that don't have any other means of support_ let them starve and live in tents?[Most who lost their jobs were probably hard-working , honorable citizens; not people just looking for handouts]. Ideology/philosophy is important in leaders. The big picture matters.Romney has hitched his wagon to Paul Ryan, and some very radical proposals.There's no question that we have to deal with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid to preserve them long-term,and it sounds like the president and some Democrats realize that, but how it's done is important.What the GOP is proposing through Ryan ( and what Romney has , for the most part ,endorsed) amounts to gutting our education system,Medicare, bloc-granting to the states Medicaid funding, and the eventual privatization of Social Security.At the same time, they want to give massive tax cuts to upper income earners, which isn't right.They protect the upper income earners, while making the rest of America sacrifice, and causing the most vulnerable to come up short_ seniors ( who would see an astronomical rise in the cost of their health care), the poor, K-12 and college students; those who need to train or re-train to get into/ back into the work force, or even to get out of poverty or off of welfare, etc.To give huge tax cuts at such a time even undercuts Republicans' own argument about the seriousness of dealing with our debt.There are a lot of considerations across the board , from potential Supreme Court retirees and replacements to whether we are going to have toxic dumping grounds next door( because of a weakened EPA) or another banking/financial crisis ( think JP Morgan Chase, Barclays,etc. ), because of many clamoring for less regulation.[Some regulations are too intrusive, but most were created out of some breach of trust, or the potential for it. We need stronger ones in some areas].These issues and the candidates' positions on them are important.They have to be dealt with, but President Obama has shown more of a willingness to come to the center on many issues; and would probably take a more balanced, measured approach to dealing with the economy; and entitlements, education,etc. in a way that doesn't gut them altogether

[manapp99]

Proof of the pudding is in the tasting as the saying goes. ALL of Obama's policys have been redistributing wealth....upward. Here is an article proving it.


"Mr. Saez is the E. Morris Cox professor of economics and director of the Center for Equitable Growth at the University of California at Berkeley, no bastion of conservatism. Mr. Saez's field of expertise is public economics. According to Mr. Saez, fully 93 percent of the income gains made during the Obama "recovery" in 2010 went to the despised top 1 percent, while the other 99 percent saw only a 0.2 percent growth in real income."

Read more: http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Sees-rich-getting-even-richer-under-Obama-3485930.php#ixzz20tf0N1Hj

[MidWestJim]

Sandy,

So many words - but so many errors.

First of all - no one getting healthcare under Obamacare is being "responsible". That is a joke. Billions will be spent to expand Medicaid, and to provide "subsidized" healthcare insurance. This will go to the same 50% of Americans who currently do not pay federal income taxes - to be paid for by those who ARE currently paying the bills. Is someone getting free food under welfare being "responsible"? Is someone getting free housing under Section 8 vouchers "responsible"? No - they are living off the efforts of others. It will be no different for the vast majority of people who "gain" health insurance under Obamacare - they are not being required to be "responsible" - they are being given a handout - to be paid for by others (or with more borrowed Chinese debt).

If you want to understand why there ARE so many people on food stamps and unemployment - then look up the last big government sponsored "giveaway" program - which was subprime loans with lowered underwriting standards - given to "poor people" (AKA - people with bad credit) by liberal democrats. Pick up a copy of "Reckless Endangerment" by NY Times reporter Gretchen Morgenson. She covered the entire subprime mess from start to finish - over 2 decades. Her #1 villians??? Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines at Fannie Mae - who initiated to push to lower lending standards in the 1990's - "supposedly" just to help poor people buy a house - but they conveniently had their bonus structures tied to Fannie Mae growth. That growth exploded by using subprimes and their earlier derivatives - netting Johnson over $100 million, and Raines (former Clinton budget director -BOTH of these men are prominent Democrats) tens of millions before he was forced to resign in disgrace due to accounting fraud that likely started under Johnson. These men nearly wrecked our economy - NOT George Bush. All Bush tried to do was to introduce regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before it was too late.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/business/19fannie.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/business/new-agency-proposed-to-oversee-freddie-mac-and-fannie-mae.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

[gallamann]

Wisconsin, it is what I look too for best estimate of what to think of numbers being presented by our left media.

Right up until they couldn't spin their BS anymore (aka 9pm election night) they had the Democrat up by 7 points.

Huh, sounds alot like spin in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Obama could care less about any American excepting what he can squeeze out of it for HIM. Every speech Bozo gives, he always uses possesive wording. He will be fine once fired, can go on the speech circuit and make millions.

[twmat311]

Can't your last paragraph apply to every elected official today, regardless of party? They all sound pure pre-election; after, they all immediately change tune.

[viguy007]

Bill: "It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is."
Mitt: It depends on what the meaning of the words 'employed' is.
The Blue Dress is Mitt's Tax Returns
No stain, no pain
Can a person be impeached before he is elected
This question is Mitt's Bain in the A$$.

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!

We must all remember a major contributing cause of the Financial Crisis of 2008 was the filing of false or misleading documents with the SEC. This is no small matter, since 2009 the SEC has collected fines of over 3 Billion dollars for this; from financial institutions such as, among others: Countrywide Financial, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Credit Suisse Group, J.P. Morgan, Wachovia Bank, and UBS Financial Services. Even if Mitt Romney actually left all operational control of Bain Capital 1999, he sanctioned and acquiesced to the filing of false and misleading documents with the SEC until 2002. While this violation may not rise to the level of these other institutions, it does indicate a certain attitude towards these filings. This was an attitude all too prevalent in the financial community prior to 2009, and all of us paid the cost.

Is full disclosure to the SEC one of the regulations Mitt would do away with? What about the other regulations regarding the financial community; Wall Street and the banks too big to fail? If you put a fox in charge of the chicken coop, you have a problem for the chickens. Will Mitt's election be the equivalent of that for the small investor? As a life-long Republican, small investor, and small businessman, I can not take that chance; I have been burnt once by a government that did not believe in regulation, and was asleep at the wheel. The sad thing is that Bain was first brought up by a candidate who wanted to colonize the moon, and the false filing was never mentioned. If this was discovered earlier, I would not have supported Mitt in the primaries and we would have a different candidate. Perjury is perjury. It was ethically and morally equal to saying "I never had sex with that woman" only worse since it was related to a public institution, not sex; and there could be no equivocation since the two official documents Mitt signed exactly contradict each other 100%. He can not flip-flop between these two documents. The only way he can extract himself from this hole is release the 12 years of tax returns, as his father did, and thereby prove he received no direct benefit from Bain after 2000.

[manapp99]

"We must all remember a major contributing cause of the Financial Crisis of 2008 was the filing of false or misleading documents with the SEC"

You may remember it that way but no one else does. What a stretch.

Speaking, as you did, of putting the foxes in charge of the chicken coop. Where do you think Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Jeffery Immelt came from? It sure wasn't from the chickens. Obama has been a failure as President which it why his entire campaign is to tear down the opponent. As one of his supporters you have three paragraphs with not a single word positive about your guy. Why? Because there is nothing positive to sell.

[dman6015]

I can see that the shop owners have swallowed the Fox News talking points hook, line and sinker. Whenever anyone says they're disgusted with the redistribution of wealth in the country, they've sipped too much of the GOP Kool-Aid(tm). The only redistribution of wealth that has occurred over the last 10 years is more middle class money going into the pockets of the 1%. The gap between super-rich and middle class is at its widest in decades. Keep in mind that the Office of the President, regardless of occupant, has very little control over job creation. Congress passes laws, not the President. In the current Congressional stalemate, everyone loses.

[twmat311]

We hear it (talking points armchair QBs) a lot on PA talk radio; as soon as the host says "please explain what youi just said," you hear the hang-up.
Still, from the top down, corruption reigns in this state (the land of "what's in it for me?"); unfortunately Turzai mmay be correct - the sad thing is his type can state this publicly, and get away with it.

[usagoingbroke]

sman6015 said, "The only redistribution of wealth that has occurred over the last 10 years is more middle class money going into the pockets of the 1%."

This is completely false. There are plenty of examples of wealth transfers just since President Obama took office in 2008. The PPACA (otherwise known as Obamacare) transferred $500 billion dollars of Medicare funds from those that paid into the program, into the government treasury to fund healthcare for the "30 million" people who'll be getting their healthcare for "free". And starting in 2014, Obamacare will transfer the wealth of the young and healthy portion of our nation, to the sick and elderly people to help cover THEIR healthcare...by forcing them to buy insurance policies they don't want or need.
Another wealth transfer was the US Auto bailout where the ownership of GM and Chrysler bond holders was signed over to the UAW; directed specifically by the Obama Car Czar. Another wealth transfer was the Cash for clunkers program where taxpayer funds were given to people who purchased cars that met specified criteria.
And don't even get me started at the wealth transfers of BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to dodgey green energy companies like Solyndra (and dozens of others) by the administration Green Energy Czar.
There are COUNTLESS other wealth transfers if you care to really think about it. Every instance the Federal government hands out free cell phones, food stamps, picks up the tab for defaulting mortgages, sends money to shore up Fanny Mae/Freddy Mac/AIG, sends money to the UN, Egypt, Pakistan, etc....they are transferring our nations wealth into the hands of other people who didn't earn it.
The problem is, there are fewer, and fewer people that are having their wealth confiscated (pulling the wagon), but are instead receiving the wealth (labor of the working class) as it is seen fit to be distributed by our corrupt and bankrupt government.
The taxpayers are broke! Wake the hell up! There are more people riding the wagon than are pulling it, and this can't continue for very long before the wagon collapses from all the riders!
Stop drinking the liberal kool aid and step up and help save our nation from collapse!

[lillyhorton]

Ron Paul for president.

[RepubsAreFiscallyLiberal]

lilly - agreed 100%

[EmpireGeorge______--]

I'm voting Cain or Santorum, depending on if "the majority goes with Cain" so I can send a message.