Obama: Republican convention merely a "rerun"

President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign stop at the Living History Farms Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012, in Des Moines, Iowa.

/ AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

(CBS News) URBANDALE, Iowa (CBS) - At his first campaign rally since the Republican convention's final night, when Mitt Romney delivered his speech accepting his party's presidential nomination, President Obama said Saturday that all the GOP rhetoric boiled down to this: "Everything's bad, it's Obama's fault and Governor Romney is the only one who knows the secret to creating jobs and growing the economy."

"It was something to behold," he said.

Relishing this first opportunity to fire back at the opposition party's gathering in Tampa, Mr. Obama said the agenda the Republicans offered was more often than not "better suited for last century."

"It was a rerun," Mr. Obama said of the policies offered up at the GOP convention. "We'd seen it before. You might as well have watched it on a black and white TV."

Addressing some 10,000 people on a farm in this town outside Des Moines, the president argued, "There was a lot of talk about bold truths and hard choices" at the GOP event. But, he said, "Nobody actually bothered to tell you what they were."

Mr. Obama said Romney "did not offer a a single new idea - just retreads of the same old policies that have been sticking it to the middle class for years."

Aides had said Mr. Obama didn't watch any of the Republican National Convention, but it was clear from his attack lines today that he had read and heard about what had gone on there.

He told his audience that his speech at the Democratic Convention in Charlotte next Thursday would offer "a better path forward."

He said it's "a path that grows this economy, creates more good jobs, strengthens the middle class."

His rally, at the Living History Farms, kicked off four days of campaigning, billed as the "Road to Charlotte." It will take him to events in Iowa, Colorado, Ohio and Virginia, swing states all, preceding his arrival in the convention host city on Wednesday.

Today's event marked his 13th visit to Iowa since taking office, his seventh this year and third in as many weeks.

With only six electoral votes to its name, Iowa has drawn more presidential attention this campaign than states with three times as many.

Mr. Obama won Iowa handily in 2008 by a margin of 54 percent to 44 percent, but recent polls show him in a tight race he's determined to win.

He told his crowd that Iowa was "where it first began" for him in the early days of the 2008 campaign, and that his supporters there had kept him going when the pundits were writing him off.

It was during his Iowa bus trip last month that Mr. Obama visited a couple of beer pubs and spoke of the home-brewed beer he was making at the White House using honey from bee-hives on the South Lawn.

His comments generated considerable interest and today, the recipes for two kinds of White House beer were posted on the White House website under the headline "Ale to the Chief."

[wfw3536]

At the convention I want to hear Obama brag about how things are getting better and how he has fixed things like the 49 million folks on food stamps a record, or the 23 plus million folks who are unemployed and yet Obama said by the end of his first four years we would be a six percent unemployment, or how one third of mortgages owners are underwater, or how nearly half of young college grads under thirty need ot live with their parents, yes Obama should be proud of his record.

[Webuiltit]

People!! Look at Greece! That is where we are headed. Look at the Unemployment rate. Look at the "Transparency" of this administration. We is drowning us in Debt, destroying our military, weakening the dollar. He has no plan, he is in way over his head. We are 16 TRILLION in Debt- he has not had a budget in 3 years. People- wake up and open your eyes to what your supporting.

[dj_chi]

WAAARRRRRRR!!!! We need WAARRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

McCain has started the drum beat and Romney said he'll heed the call - fattening up the military budget and sending troops to take over the street of Syria and Iraq!!! Maybe then Yemen and Egypt.

Vote for the killing!! We can spare the lives of a few thousand US troops!! We can spare the trillions to pay for it!

Vote for the bombs, vote for the blood! VOTE for WARRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[RollotheNorman]

Don't waste time with this yo-yo. Just flag his posts promoting this movie as commercial spam, which it is.

[Larnan5]

Romney said that the Democratic convention will not be as happy as the GOP.Maybe not. But it won't be a convention with a sea of 99% whites faces longing for a return to their world of the 1950's or before. A world where if you were Black you were considered a person on no value. If you were Jewish you had trouble getting a job in many industries and were restricted from many hotels. If you were a mixed race couple you were spat upon. Help for the poor and unfortunate was giving them a free turkey for Thanksgiving.Abortions were back alley events. If you were seriously ill you went broke trying to pay the medical bills. Yes, they were happy to think the country was going to return to the "good old days". Who needs that kind of happy?

[dj_chi]

Vote for the GOP because we need more WAR!! March the boots thru Syria! Yes!! March the boots thru Iraq! Yes! Yes!! McCain calls for the bombs to fly and a Romney White House will eagerly comply!!! Sing it to your children. The great USA will create an enemy and make them pay!!

Vote GOP and vote for more WAR!!!!!!

[wdrussell1]

How bad was the convention? The smartest person on stage was an empty chair.

[abbe91]

LOL but how true.

[CaptainSmollett]

Any sitting president who's principle campaign strategy is to attack his opponent to the exclusion of addressing the issues and explaining his record, is confessing his own failure.

[RollotheNorman]

We trying for some kind of statement of principal here Capt'n?
Don't bother RepubliCONs are bankrupt in that area, have been since '92.

[tmsanders78]

Another liberal who is bankrupt in knowledge of the English language.

It is a statement of "principle" - a standard, a law or a rule.

A "Principal" is a person.

[CaptainSmollett]

To ludvig1-2009 - well the Federal Reserve disagrees with you! And so does the chief economist of the Conference Board! So I guess you are a real genius, or more likely, just not paying attention.

To Rollo - You say "Obama's record is without blemish". OMG, you are totally delusional. Have you not read anything about the increasing poverty, unemployment, debt, deficits, and the decimation of working-class wealth in the past two years? You can't defend Obama's failure, so you pretend it doesn't exist. Well try telling that to the 23,000,000 Americans unemployed, and the 100,000,000 on some form of welfare.

[RollotheNorman]

I think you truly do believe just spewing out some numbers in your cut and paste posts will move people to believe the swill that RepubliCONs are continuously spewing forth. You people stated to totally unnecessary wars and gave tax cuts at the same time. Now you want to cut taxes and abolish regulations to strengthen the economy. How come then, when taxes were low already and regulations almost nonexistent the bottom came out on Dubya's watch? Now yer boy Willard want to ride the same one trick pony all over again. What a plan!! Dubya's unfinished business of wrecking America, and you clown's want to sell this snake oil all over again. No thank you. If I'm delusional, you must be verging on brain dead.

[RollotheNorman]

Further, you seem to be speechless as to Willard's very subpar proformance in MA. To be fair, Willard himself, seems to believe silence is the best option he has as far as his record, his only record BTW, of past performance in an executive governmental role. Oh, yeah his campaign tried to cherry pick some stats some weeks ago, then dropped it. Probably because his malfeasance was indefensible.

Obama is ahead of weird Willard approximately 20% in MA. Sounds to me like it is about more than MA leaning left.

[vengenceofgod100]

The happy convention of Mitt was as boring a convention as I've ever witnessed. I enjoyed it like Saint Augustine enjoyed lust. It was dry as cracker dust two hundred miles from a glass of water. To be honest I was more concerned about the hurricane in the gulf, you know Mitt the one which made all the water in Louisiana.

[CaptainSmollett]

If you listened to Condoleezza Rice and Arthur Davis speak at that convention, and that didn't stir your emotions, you must be comatose!

[CaptainSmollett]

Mr. Obama, instead of telling us about the GOP, tell us what you have done to deserve a second term. The economy is getting worse, not better, so explain YOUR record, and why things won't continue to deteriorate if you're re-elected. That is the real issue!!!!

[nearl451]

It is stagnatingin light of spending cuts at State,Local,AND federal level.

I thought you were smart enough to recognize this fact...but I guess not.

[ludvig1-2009]

I disagree, the economy is getting better. Get your head out of the ostrich hole.