CINCINNATI — Just 10 days after wrapping up a bus tour of Ohio, President Obama returned to this crucial swing state Monday, this time for a town hall in a heavily Republican area
At the Cincinnati Music Hall, where he also held a fundraiser, Obama continued to make appeals to the middle class by emphasizing his administration’s bailout of the U.S. auto industry and his proposal to extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class.
Graphic
Obama vs. Romney poll: If the election were held today, whom registered voters say they would vote for.
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Romney senior adviser Ed Gillespie defended his candidate from attacks over the timing of his departure from Bain Sunday.
The president also kept up his attacks on GOP rival Mitt Romney by suggesting that the former Massachusetts governor supports limited taxing of U.S. corporations abroad that would encourage more jobs to flow overseas.
“We have not found a serious economic study that says Gov. Romney’s economic plan would actually create jobs, until today, I have to be honest,” Obama said, citing a report by Tax Notes report. “Today we found out there is a new study by non-partisan economists that says Gov. Romney’s economic plan would in fact create 800,000 jobs. There’s only one problem. The jobs wouldn’t be in America. .... We don’t need a president who plans to ship more jobs overseas.”
Obama has proposed offering tax breaks to U.S.companies that bring jobs back to the United States.
The Obama campaign has put special emphasis on Ohio, which has emerged as a bellwether state whose voters have supported the winner in the past 10 presidential elections. Obama formally kicked off his reelection effort with a speech in Columbus in early May, and he delivered a lengthy economic address in Cleveland in June.
Though both sides believe the race will be tight, polls show Obama holding a small but steady advantage in Ohio and other swing states. His campaign has outspent Romney by $91 million to $23 million on television ads in those battlegrounds. Obama’s ads largely criticize Romney’s record as former head of Bain Capital, a private equity firm that has come under scrutiny for investing in companies that helped send U.S. jobs offshore.
The Romney campaign, which is facing increased criticism from Republicans about its strategy, sent out a memo Monday morning that suggested that the attacks on Romney’s record were in fact falling flat and not moving the needle in terms of polling.
“President Obama’s campaign will never have a more substantial advertising advantage than it has had over the past few weeks, yet there is no evidence to suggest that the ballot has moved,” wrote Neil Newhouse, Romney’s pollster, in the memo. “If throwing the kitchen sink at Gov. Romney while leveraging a two-to-one ad-spending advantage doesn’t move numbers for the President, that’s got to tell you something about the state of the electorate: Voters are frustrated with President Obama’s failure to keep his promises from the 2008 campaign and don’t truly believe the next four years will be any different from the last three and a half.”
Romney has defended his record, saying Bain created jobs during his tenure and that the company invested in companies that helped outsource jobs only after Romney gave up day-to-day management of the firm in 1999, when he left to organize the winter Olympics in Utah.
At the Cincinnati Music Hall, where he also held a fundraiser, Obama continued to make appeals to the middle class by emphasizing his administration’s bailout of the U.S. auto industry and his proposal to extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class.
Graphic
Obama vs. Romney poll: If the election were held today, whom registered voters say they would vote for.
More from PostPolitics
Ed O'Keefe 2CHAMBERS | On the agenda: Debating tax cuts and inquiries about the Cabinet’s travel schedule
Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake THE FIX | This may not be a campaign that Democrats will look back on lovingly, but the president seems to understand that winning, whether beautiful or ugly, is the ultimate goal.
Matt DeLong Romney senior adviser Ed Gillespie defended his candidate from attacks over the timing of his departure from Bain Sunday.
The president also kept up his attacks on GOP rival Mitt Romney by suggesting that the former Massachusetts governor supports limited taxing of U.S. corporations abroad that would encourage more jobs to flow overseas.
“We have not found a serious economic study that says Gov. Romney’s economic plan would actually create jobs, until today, I have to be honest,” Obama said, citing a report by Tax Notes report. “Today we found out there is a new study by non-partisan economists that says Gov. Romney’s economic plan would in fact create 800,000 jobs. There’s only one problem. The jobs wouldn’t be in America. .... We don’t need a president who plans to ship more jobs overseas.”
Obama has proposed offering tax breaks to U.S.companies that bring jobs back to the United States.
The Obama campaign has put special emphasis on Ohio, which has emerged as a bellwether state whose voters have supported the winner in the past 10 presidential elections. Obama formally kicked off his reelection effort with a speech in Columbus in early May, and he delivered a lengthy economic address in Cleveland in June.
Though both sides believe the race will be tight, polls show Obama holding a small but steady advantage in Ohio and other swing states. His campaign has outspent Romney by $91 million to $23 million on television ads in those battlegrounds. Obama’s ads largely criticize Romney’s record as former head of Bain Capital, a private equity firm that has come under scrutiny for investing in companies that helped send U.S. jobs offshore.
The Romney campaign, which is facing increased criticism from Republicans about its strategy, sent out a memo Monday morning that suggested that the attacks on Romney’s record were in fact falling flat and not moving the needle in terms of polling.
“President Obama’s campaign will never have a more substantial advertising advantage than it has had over the past few weeks, yet there is no evidence to suggest that the ballot has moved,” wrote Neil Newhouse, Romney’s pollster, in the memo. “If throwing the kitchen sink at Gov. Romney while leveraging a two-to-one ad-spending advantage doesn’t move numbers for the President, that’s got to tell you something about the state of the electorate: Voters are frustrated with President Obama’s failure to keep his promises from the 2008 campaign and don’t truly believe the next four years will be any different from the last three and a half.”
Romney has defended his record, saying Bain created jobs during his tenure and that the company invested in companies that helped outsource jobs only after Romney gave up day-to-day management of the firm in 1999, when he left to organize the winter Olympics in Utah.