President Obama to meet Romney at White House

President Barack Obama will host Mitt Romney for a private lunch at the White House on Thursday, their first meeting since Obama defeated him in this month’s presidential election.

The encounter follows Obama’s promise, in the aftermath of the bitterly fought November 6 election, to consult the former Republican governor of Massachusetts by the end of the year. It also comes amid Obama’s efforts to work out with congressional leaders a way to avoid a looming “fiscal cliff” that could push the U.S. economy back into recession.

“Governor Romney will have a private lunch at the White House with President Obama in the private dining room,” the White House said of the meeting, which will be closed to the media. “It will be the first opportunity they have had to visit since the election.”

Obama’s talks with Romney will be sandwiched between a series of events this week in which he is making his case to Americans to raise taxes on wealthy Americans while extending tax cuts for the middle class – an approach that his former Republican rival strongly opposed during the campaign.

Obama’s Democrats and their Republican foes remain deadlocked over dramatic, year-end tax increases and spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff that will kick in unless a deal is struck.

Seeking to make good on his post-election pledge to reach across the political aisle, Obama told a November 14 news conference he wanted to “sit down and talk” to Romney to hear his ideas and see whether they could work together.

Obama said he could envision a future role in public service for Romney but had no specific “assignment” for him.

Romney, in a conference call with donors after the election, was widely reported to have said that Obama won by using targeted initiatives to reward specific constituencies, including African-Americans, Latinos and young people.

Obama, who won a decisive victory after a bruising campaign, had sought to depict Romney as out of touch with ordinary Americans and intent on shielding the rich from higher taxes.

Romney had accused Obama of failed economic policies and wasteful spending to promote big government.

Romney Campaign Still Upbeat Despite New Polls

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign sought Monday to reassure donors and supporters in a “State of the Race” bulletin after polling data showed a convention bounce for Barack Obama.

“Don’t get too worked up about the latest polling. While some voters will feel a bit of a sugar-high from the conventions, the basic structure of the race has not changed significantly,” said Romney campaign pollster Neil Newhouse.

In his “State of the Race” memo, Newhouse argues that there are three sets of numbers that will ultimately affect the way people will vote in November: unemployment trends, how many Americans are looking for work, and how many are on food stamps.

“President Obama is the only president in modern American history to stand before the American people asking for re-election with this many Americans struggling to find work,” Newhouse writes. “The key numbers in this election are the 43 straight months of 8% or higher unemployment, the 23 million Americans struggling to find work, and the 47 million Americans who are on food stamps.” “The reality of the Obama economy will reassert itself as the ultimate downfall of the Obama presidency, and Mitt Romney will win this race.”

Following last week’s Democratic convention in North Carolina, a series of national polls showed Obama edging ahead of his Republican rival and a survey in the must-win swing state of Ohio put him five points clear.

Newhouse, however, argued that Romney was still the preferred candidate on the crucial issue of the economy and that all the signs pointed to a tight race in which the former Massachusetts governor had a money advantage.

The message was seen as an attempt to shore up support for the Republican candidate after some disappointing polls and after Obama outraised Romney in August for the first time in four months.

Newhouse said Romney’s supporters were more enthusiastic and that the campaign had crossed a 20 million volunteer threshold as they deploy an all-out “Ground Game” across the key states in the November 6 election.

“Mitt Romney will be the next president,” he said. “The outcome of this race will ultimately be determined in favor of governor Romney because he has the better leadership skills, the better record, and the better vision for where he wants to take the country.

“In short, the combination of having the superior candidate, being in a margin-of-error race with an incumbent president, having a cash advantage, and having an unprecedented grassroots effort and a winning message on the economy ensure that Americans will make a change in leadership in Washington on November 6.”

He results though may not be as bad as they suggest, The Gallup seven day tracking poll of 3050 registered voters, that has a margin of error of 2.0 percent, samples Democrats by about a 8 percent margin based on calculations from the reported data. If the data is properly weighted for the partisan makeup of the electorate, the data from this poll unskewed would show a Romney lead of 49 percent to 44. By skewing the poll, it gives Obama a five point lead instead of showing Romney leading by the same total.

The Gallup tracking poll has Democrats favoring Obama by a 90 percent to seven percent margin while Republicans surveyed in the poll favor Romney by a 91 percent to six percent margin. Independent voters to support Romney by a 43 percent to 42 percent edge. The significance of this is, somewhere along the way the weighting and sampling used by Gallup appears to have changed. The polling output resulting from this change demonstrates an apparent change that may not have happened at all, resulting in the showing of a Barack Obama post-convention “bounce” much larger than what might have actually occurred.

Obama Secures Post Convention Polls bump

President Barack Obama claimed the early momentum in the US presidential election on Monday night as he pulled clear of Mitt Romney in four polls, but Republican rival Mitt Romney is still within striking distance with eight weeks to go before the election.

Obama expanded his edge over Romney after their back-to-back nominating conventions and has leads in eight of the top nine battleground states, giving him an advantage but not a lock on the race.

A Gallup seven-day tracking poll out Monday also showed Obama ahead, with a five percentage point cushion, while another post-convention survey gave the Democratic incumbent a five-percent lead in the key battleground of Ohio.

The candidates were tied at 48 percent support in the previous CNN/ORC poll, conducted before last week’s three-day convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, at which Obama was formally nominated for a second term.

Forty-three percent of Americans said last week’s Democratic Convention makes them more likely to vote for Obama, and slightly better than the 40 percent reading for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney right in a previous poll after the Republican Convention in late August.

At the same time, a relatively high 38 percent of Americans said the Democratic convention made them less likely to vote for Obama, resulting in a net impact rating of 5 percent, which is on the low-end of Gallup’s historical comparisons.

According to the poll, 43 percent of Americans also rated Obama ‘s nomination acceptance speech last Thursday night as “excellent” or “good,” marginally better than the 38 percent who gave the same ratings to Mitt Romney’s speech in Gallup’s post-Republican Convention poll.

However, it is also a much less favorable reaction than Americans gave to Obama’s 2008 acceptance speech in a large stadium in Denver, Colorado, where 58 percent rated his speech positively, including 35 percent who rated it as “excellent,” a record high since 2000.

The Romney camp played down the significance of Obama’s gains, and predicting economic realities would bring the race back to the tight margins that have characterized it for months.

“The basic structure of the race has not changed significantly,” Newhouse said.

“The reality of the Obama economy will reassert itself.”

Romney, has argued his business experience makes him uniquely qualified to boost job growth and turn around a stumbling economy suffering from 8.1 percent unemployment.

But he has made no headway against Obama, whose campaign spent the summer hammering Romney in advertisements as an out-of-touch millionaire whose business experience mostly involved raiding companies for cash and leaving workers jobless.

Friday’s weaker than expected jobs report, released the morning after Obama concluded his convention, did not keep Obama from cracking 50 percent in the CNN poll and in his job approval rating recorded by Gallup.

Romney has also battled a likeability gap with Obama, and much of his convention was spent trying to paint a softer side of the former Massachusetts governor for voters who have not warmed to him.

But the CNN poll found the number of likely voters who viewed Romney favorably dropped from 50 percent before the two conventions to 48 percent. The number who viewed Obama favorably rose from 52 percent before the conventions to 57 percent.

Both camps plan to bombard swing states with television advertisements down the stretch. Republicans hope a sizable cash-on-hand advantage, $60 million in August, will help them make their case against Obama’s economic leadership and convince voters a change is needed.

But Obama and his Democratic allies stayed even in the money race last month, outraising Republicans $114 million to $111 million after trailing Romney and Republicans in every month since April.

Unexpected events, like an economic meltdown in Europe or an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program, could still change the picture. In 2008, the financial crisis in September shifted a tight race with Republican John McCain toward Obama.

“We’ve still got a long way to go to the election, and we’re probably going to see the race tighten up again, particularly ahead of the debates and the key to the debates will be who is most credible on the economy.”

Polls show Obama with a clear advantage on the campaign map in the battle for the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House.

The Real Clear Politics average of polls in nine of the key toss-up states won by Obama in 2008 showed the president leading in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. Romney led only in North Carolina.

Those leads exceeded 3 percentage points in only three states, however – Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire – leaving plenty of room for change.

Democrats have been heartened by Obama’s steady lead in Ohio, a critical battleground that Romney cannot afford to lose. The Real Clear Politics average gives Obama a 2.2 point lead in Ohio, which enjoys an unemployment rate lower than the national average and where Obama’s auto industry bailout is popular.

Obama also has leads in the other big battleground state, Florida, as well as the emerging swing states of Virginia and Colorado, where improving local economies and shifting demographics have helped his cause.

Romney is hoping the choice of Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his No. 2 helps him flip that state to his column. He leads in North Carolina, a historically Republican state that Obama narrowly won in 2008.

Top Romney advisers insisted they remain well-positioned to take Ohio and the White House in November. They took heart in the Republican primary race, which featured several challengers who moved past Romney in polls only to fade in the end.

Romney has already been preparing for the debates, which begin on October 3 in Denver with a focus on domestic policy. The vice presidential debate is October 11 in Kentucky, while Romney and Obama will meet again in a town hall format on October 16 in New York and to debate foreign policy on October 22 in Florida.

Romney began debate practice last week during the Democratic convention, sparring against Ohio Senator Rob Portman, who played Obama. Obama will sharpen his debating skills against Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.

 

President Obama beats Romney in the August fundraising stakes

President Barack Obama’s campaign and its Democratic partners raised more than $114 million in August, narrowly beating Republican Mitt Romney for the first time in months as the race for the White House enters its final stretch.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and fellow Republicans raised more than $111 million in the same month, continuing a string of high-dollar hauls that has equipped him well for the last two months of the presidential campaign.

While Obama shattered every fundraising record in 2008 after the becoming the first presidential candidate to opt out of a federal matching funds system, Romney has outpaced him significantly on the fundraising front this year.

That has added to a cash advantage on the Republican side that is helped by the success of outside groups, or Super PACs, that have spent lavishly in support of the Republican candidate.

The Obama campaign appeared to stumble in July, raising $75 million to Romney’s $101 million. That changed in August.

The Democratic incumbent broadened his donor base with more than 317,000 donors who had never given money before, said Obama campaign manager Jim Messina in a statement.

“The key to fighting back against the special interests writing limitless checks to support Mitt Romney is growing our donor base, and we did substantially in the month of August,” he said. “That is a critical downpayment on the organization we are building across the country – the largest grassroots campaign in history.”

Romney, the Republican National Committee and state Republican parties reported that together they have about $168.5 million in cash at their disposal. Republicans argued over the weekend that Obama had spent nearly $100 million to “poison” voters’ views of Romney, but polls show a tight race as evidence that they have withstood the advertising onslaught Obama’s campaign launched early in the year.

“Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are offering bold solutions to our country’s problems. That is why we are seeing such tremendous support from donors across the country,” Romney’s national finance chairman Spencer Zwick and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Preibus said in a joint statement.
Obama’s advisers say they are confident they spent their campaign cash well by seeking to define Romney over the summer months, but the discrepancy in available funds is a top concern.

The average donation the Obama team collected in August was $58 and 98 percent of donations were for $250 or less. It is the first month Obama’s campaign and its Democratic partners have broken the $100 million monthly threshold this year.

 

Romney and Obama hit the battleground states with 60 days to go

President Barack Obama took his “ready to go forward” message to Florida voters in his first stop Saturday on a bus tour through the swing state.

The president was introduced by former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who was once a Republican but is now an independent and an Obama supporter. Obama said Crist backing proves “the values we are fighting for aren’t just Democratic values or Republican values, they’re American values.”

President Obama on Saturday pronounced Republicans ”dead wrong” for calling America a country in decline, offering a rebuttal to the “naysayers” who drew attention to the nation’s staggering debt and anemic job growth. Mitt Romney said there’s nothing wrong that a new president can’t fix.

Both clawed for advantage in a post-convention push through some of the most closely contested states, Obama on a Florida bus tour, Romney rallying in Virginia, opening the homestretch to the election in less than two months.

Obama told a spirited rally that America’s “basic bargain” is at stake in the election, the promise that “if you work hard it will pay off.” He pledged to make education more affordable, reduce dependence on foreign oil and slash deficits “without sticking it to the middle class” if he gets another term.

“When our opponents say this nation is in decline they are dead wrong,” he said. “This is America. We still have the best workers in the world and the best entrepreneurs in the world. We’ve got the best scientists and the best researchers. We’ve got the best colleges and the best universities.”

He went on: “We are a young nation with the greatest diversity of talent and ingenuity from every corner of the globe so no matter what the naysayers may say for political reasons, no matter how dark they try to make everything look, there’s not a country on earth that wouldn’t gladly trade places with the United States of America.”

Obama’s visit to Florida is his first since Romney and the GOP held their convention in Tampa last month. With 29 electoral votes, the state is a lynchpin in both candidates’ strategies for winning the election.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney told a flag-waving crowd at the Virginia Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach this afternoon that Virginia’s voters have the power to change the nation’s streak of anemic jobs reports.

“I know that this week has not been a week of a lot of good news,” he said. “You saw the reports that we’re not creating as many jobs as even would keep up with our population growth. And you saw that for every net new job that was created last month, four people dropped out of the workforce. So this was not the kind of news that the American people were hoping for and deserve. I’m here to tell you that things are going to get a lot better, but that’s going to require you doing something important and that’s electing me the next president of the United States,” he said.

Romney noted that the nation’s unemployment rate has remained above 8 percent for 43 consecutive months. Romney also emphasized the importance of a strong Navy and Air Force. He said America must have a military so strong that no foe would consider testing it.

Romney said America is creating about nine ships a year, and that he would increase it to 15 ships as president. “It’s time to have a rebuilding of our Navy to make sure it’s the strongest in the world and it fulfills our missions,” he said. “I will not cut our military. I will maintain our miltary commitment.”

He also cited the automatic defense cuts, called “sequestration,” that will start to take effect in January if the president and Congress cannot reach a deficit reduction agreement. “If I’m president of the United States we’ll get rid of those sequestration cuts and rebuild America’s military might,” he added.

Romney said that at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, the president did not detail how he plans to put people back to work.

“He doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t have any ideas. We’ve got to make sure he doesn’t have any more days in the White House after January.”

Michelle Obama makes the case for four more years for Barack

First Lady Michelle Obama made the hard sell on Tuesday that the change her husband Barack Obama championed in his White House campaign four years ago has proven difficult but urged voters to give him four more years to fix the struggling U.S. economy.

“He reminds me that we are playing a long game here, and that change is hard, and change is slow, and it never happens all at once,” she told the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. “But eventually we get there. We always do.”

The popular first lady was the highest-profile advocate for her husband in the first of three days of speeches that will conclude with Obama’s address on Thursday to accept the Democratic presidential nomination to face Mitt Romney on November 6.

Obama’s economic argument got a little tougher on Tuesday. New surveys showed U.S. manufacturing shrank at its sharpest clip in more than three years last month, while exports and hiring in the sector also slumped.

The president is trying to use his convention to recapture the magic that carried him to victory in 2008 but he admitted to a Colorado television reporter that he would give himself a grade of “incomplete” for his first term.

The First-Lady spoke a week after Romney’s wife, Ann, hurled some zingers at Obama in promoting her husband at the Republican convention in Tampa. “For Barack, success isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives,” Michelle Obama said, perhaps a reference to multimillionaire Romney’s past as a private equity executive.

The Democrats even choreographed a swipe at the former Massachusetts governor from beyond the grave, by playing a video of late Senator Ted Kennedy getting the better of Romney during a debate in the 1994 election campaign for Kennedy’s Senate seat.

One of the most exuberant attackers was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who recently made a controversial claim that Romney had paid no income taxes for 10 years, which was shot down by Romney.

Reid took up the tax argument again.

“Mitt Romney says we should take his word that he paid his fair share? His word? Trust comes from transparency, and Mitt Romney comes up short on both,” Reid said.

The Democrats highlighted Obama’s successes during his first term – from ordering the mission that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to the bailout of the auto industry – while reminding voters of the difficulties Obama faced when he took office.

“Four years ago, America stood on the brink of a depression,” said Julian Castro, mayor of the Texas city of San Antonio and a rising star in the party. “Despite incredible odds and united Republican opposition, our president took action. And now we’ve seen 4.5 million new jobs.”

Republicans complain that the Democrats are trying to concentrate on women’s issues and other topics so as to avoid talking about the economy.

“On the first night of President Obama’s convention, not a single speaker uttered the words ‘Americans are better off than they were four years ago,’” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

Obama went into the convention getting high marks from voters on personal attributes but facing doubts about his handling of the U.S. economy, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

Overall, Romney led Obama 46 percent to 45 percent among likely voters.

With Democrats anxious about the tight race, Mrs. Obama urged party activists to rally around the president.

“We must work like never before, and we must once again come together and stand together for the man we can trust to keep moving this great country forward, my husband, our president, Barack Obama,” she said.

Obama will make his acceptance speech in a 74,000-capacity football stadium on Thursday night.

Romney is ceding the political spotlight to Obama and staying off the campaign trail for most of this week. He spent Tuesday in Vermont, preparing for the three presidential debates that begin on October 3.

Former President Bill Clinton, who presided over economic boom times in his 1990s White House years, is the main Wednesday speaker.

 

President Obama and Mitt Romney in Virtual Tie in Latest Poll

President Barack Obama enters Convention week tied with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Sunday, leaving the incumbent an opportunity to edge ahead of his opponent at the Democratic National Convention.

With the Democrats set to nominate Obama for a second term this week in Charlotte, North Carolina, the race to the presidential election on November 6 is all knotted up at 45 percent for Obama and 45 percent for Romney among likely voters, the survey found.

The findings were from the seventh day of a rolling online poll conducted for Reuters by Ipsos to judge voters’ attitudes around the political conventions.

A week ago, a Reuters/Ipsos poll said Obama led Romney 46 percent to 42 percent. The Republican’s own convention last week in Tampa, Florida, gave him a small boost, vaulting him into an even position with Obama but no further.

Now Obama, who is to accept the nomination on Thursday, is poised to get his own convention bounce.

While each candidate won overwhelming support from voters in his own political party, Romney was leading Obama among all-important independent voters by 33 percent to 28 percent, the poll found.

Romney’s improvement on key attributes continued on an upward trajectory in the poll. On such issues as he “represents America,” “is a good person,” and “is eloquent,” Romney was essentially tied with Obama. On who is more likable, Romney had improved but still trailed Obama 32 percent to 48 percent, the poll found.

Republicans used their convention to play up the former private equity executive’s family and personal life. For Romney, one of the big tests of the Republican convention was to make him more of a human, make him a little more personable, make him more likable. This they succeeded in doing very well.

There has been no real movement in terms of candidate perceptions on any substantive policy areas such as healthcare, or even on which candidate is better in protecting American jobs. The poll suggested voters are waiting to hear what Obama has to say about the most pressing issue of the campaign, the U.S. economy and 8.3 percent unemployment.

With fewer than 70 days until Election Day, Obama, 51, and Romney, 65, have zeroed in on fewer than a dozen battleground states. After Iowa, the president plans stops over the next few days in Colorado, Ohio and Virginia before flying to Charlotte, N.C., to accept renomination. The five states combined, all won by Obama four years ago, hold 61 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.

Romney will spend this week starting to prepare for his October debates against Obama, campaign strategist Kevin Madden told reporters yesterday. The former Massachusetts governor will huddle in Vermont with advisers including Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, a veteran of debate preparation for Republican presidential nominees, to get ready for the three faceoffs, Madden said.

Asked whether the campaign was concerned about the prospect that Romney would surrender the media spotlight to Obama during the Democratic convention if he took a break from campaigning, Madden said: “We’ve spent a good deal of time on the campaign trail. We’ll still have surrogates out.”

The survey said 76 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track and 73 percent have a similar belief about jobs in the United States.

On the president’s signature issue of his first term, healthcare, 62 percent believe the healthcare system is on the wrong track. Obama led an overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system that Republicans deeply opposed.

Interest in the political conventions is high. The poll found 82 percent of registered voters have seen, heard, or read at least something about the Republican convention.

But this dropped to 73 percent among independents and 66 percent among non-aligned registered voters, those who are undecided about how to vote or who say they will not vote.

The rolling poll measures sentiment during the two-week convention season by polling over the previous four days.

For the survey, a sample of 1,441 American registered voters was interviewed online. The precision of the Reuters/Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points for all respondents.

 

Romney Promises to Stick to Fiscal Responsibility

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney promised to lead America to a “winning season” and insisted that his party would stick to the promises of fiscal responsibility that it had abandoned in the past.

“We’re going to finally have to do something that Republicans have spoken about for a long time, and for a while we didn’t do it. When we had the lead, we let people down,” Romney told a roaring crowd in Ohio as House Speaker John Boehner, a long time congressional leader, stood behind him. “We need to make sure we don’t let them down this time. I will cut the deficit and get us on track to a balanced budget.”

The former Massachusetts governor blames President Barack Obama, a Democrat, for the country’s exploding debt and deficits.

Romney himself has not yet provided enough policy detail to show whether his budget plan would cut the deficit in the long term. The budget that his running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, wrote and that House Republicans passed this year shows a decline in the deficit each year from 2013 until 2017, when it is forecast to be $488 billion. But beginning in 2019, it begins rising again each year through 2022, when it is forecast to be $728 billion.

Two days after accepting his party’s nomination, Romney rolled out a pared-down version of his acceptance speech. His Ohio appearance was the first of two campaign events planned for Saturday. Those were his last scheduled public appearances before he spends a few days in New England preparing for three debates planned in October with Obama.

A Romney spokesman said the campaign currently has no public events planned for the most competitive states during the Democratic National Convention that starts Tuesday, and that Romney would be sequestered with Ohio Sen. Rob Portman preparing for the debates. Obama campaigned in three battleground states last week during Romney’s Republican National Convention.

Ryan, the vice presidential nominee, will campaign in Greenville, N.C., Monday, and other Romney allies also will make appearances on his behalf.

On Saturday, Romney stood in a cavernous Art Deco train station in the heart of the industrial Midwest — the Union Terminal in Cincinnati — and told a screaming, cheering crowd that the country is stronger when it hangs together. His voice was hoarse as he delivered his remarks, though he was clearly buoyed by the energy of the crowd.

“United, America built the strongest economy in the history of the earth. United we put Neil Armstrong on the moon,” Romney said. “United we face down unspeakable darkness.”

He mentioned the hardships facing families who are struggling with rising prices for food and gas and having trouble finding well-paying jobs, saying: “We recognize what a great responsibility you’ve given us. How much you expect from us to be able to get back the White House and get America back on track.”

He pointed to Obama’s own convention speech.

“He famously said he was going to slow the rise of the oceans and he was going to heal the planet,” Romney said. “Our promise to you is this: We’re going to help the American people and help the families of America.

Romney spoke on the first day of college football season, and as he began his speech, he said: “Let me tell you, if you have a coach that is zero and 23 million, you say it’s time to get a new coach.”

He referred to the 23 million Americans who are unemployed, and said: “It’s time for America to see a winning season again, and we’re going to bring it to them.”

Romney appeared later in the day in Jacksonville, Fla., where he appealed to the thousands of military voters who live in the area. “The world is not a safer place right now, not with Iran trying to become nuclear, dangers throughout the world,” Romney said.

Romney campaigned with Ryan, his running mate, in Jacksonville. The vice presidential nominee earlier in the day had attended the Ohio State University game in Columbus against his alma mater, Miami University of Ohio.

A local TV reporter asked Romney if he had counseled his No. 2 on how not to lose votes of Ohio State fans by rooting for the other team on their home turf.

“There are great football rivalries associated with my campaign, not just with Miami of Ohio candidate Paul Ryan but also a guy from Michigan. I’m surprised you let me over the border this morning,” Romney said.

A Romney spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about whether the Republican presidential nominee planned to watch any of the day’s games, follow the score of any particular matchup or had a team that he backs, though spokesman Kevin Madden said staffers had been talking to him about the day’s match-ups.

Romney has said he is a Boston Red Sox baseball fan and that he supports the New England Patriots professional football team. He attended Stanford and Brigham Young University, both of which have football teams. He was raised in Michigan, where the University of Michigan and Michigan State are football rivals.

Campaigning earlier this year in New Hampshire, a voter asked him which of his home state teams he was backing during ongoing college football season.

“I’m for both Michigan and Michigan State these days,” Romney responded.

Related articles

• Romney Tackles Obama over Economy in Ohio stop (worldviewtonight.com)
• Ryan officially nominated as Romney’s V.P. and then issues plea to voters on America’s future (worldviewtonight.com)
• Back on the stump in Ohio and Iowa, Romney and Obama trade jabs (washingtontimes.com)

Romney Tackles Obama over Economy in Ohio stop

Republican nominee Mitt Romney campaigned in the swing state of Ohio on Saturday, where he likened US President Barack Obama’s promises on job-creation to that of a failing sports coach.

Romney, fresh from being crowned the party’s official candidate for the White House election, unfavorably compared the job pledges made by Obama in 2008 against his subsequent record in office.

“One of the promises he made was he was going to create more jobs, and today, 23 million people are out of work or stopped looking for work or are underemployed,” Romney said at an event in Cincinnati.

“Let me tell you, if you have a coach that’s 0-23 million, you say it’s time to get a new coach.”

Stubbornly high US unemployment, currently 8.3 percent, and a bumpy economic recovery are widely seen as the biggest hurdles to Obama’s hopes of winning the national vote on November 6.

After the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, Romney and his White House running mate Paul Ryan are seeking to maintain momentum as Obama and his Democratic Party prepare for their convention starting Monday.

Ohio is a key battleground state which, along with Florida and Pennsylvania, is considered crucial to the outcome of the election.

Recent polls have shown Obama leading in Ohio, a major coal producer. But Romney is not far behind and is fighting hard — he has visited the state and mentioned it several times this year around his pledge to expand domestic energy production, a tactic he reiterated on Saturday.

“Paul Ryan and I have a plan that’s going to get America working again. It’s going to create about 12 million new jobs in America and about 460,000 jobs right here in Ohio,” Romney said, touting his energy policy.

Obama, meanwhile, left the White House on Saturday and headed to Iowa — the state where his ultimately successful first run for the presidency kicked into life four years ago.

The president was due to speak in Urbandale, close to Des Moines, as part of a four-day trip through swing states in the lead-up to his re-nomination at the Democratic Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

While Romney is hoping for a ratings bounce after the Republican convention, the focus of the political action has now shifted to the White House incumbent.

Obama’s top advisor David Axelrod said Friday that the president would use the Democratic convention to deliver the specifics that Romney’s speech on Thursday, which he said was packed with personal anecdotes and patriotic platitudes, lacked.

 

Rush predicts return of the Newt

Rush Limbaugh predicted Monday that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich could make what would be his third comeback in the GOP presidential contest.

Telling his listeners that the polls indicated Mitt Romney would likely lose the Michigan primary, the conservative icon said he wouldn’t be surprised if Romney’s demise gives Gingrich yet another opportunity to be frontrunner. Another great performance by Gingrich in a debate could turn the race around once again, Limbaugh said.

“I think there’s a possibility of something happening nobody’s talking about — and that’s the reemergence of Newt. Keep a sharp eye. Anything’s still possible,” Limbaugh said.

“If Romney has trouble in Michigan… Now, Public Policy Polling is a very liberal polling group out of North Carolina. They say that Romney’s gaining ground, and he could well be. A slew of negative ads are being run against Santorum, and they work. Negative ads have always been shown to work, and Romney’s gaining ground back in Michigan. Of course, the Republican establishment would be turned upside down if he loses in Michigan, because that’s his what, second or third home state? And his dad was governor there. …

Limbaugh pointed out that a number of news accounts have pointed out that GOP candidates, to be successful in Michigan, would have to say they supported the auto bailout of Chrysler and General Motors. One reason Romney is doing so bad in the polls is that he, the son of former auto industry chief and Michigan governor, has consistently said that the Obama administration should have let the automakers go bankrupt.

“If Romney falters in Michigan, the guy to look at as perhaps having a chance to get back in this big time is Newt Gingrich,” Limbaugh said. “Do you realize there hasn’t been a debate in a month? There has not been a debate, and look at what impact that could be having on the polls, ’cause there haven’t been any primaries, either. But look at the impact no debates are having. So if Romney doesn’t do as expected, then of course the Republican Party establishment’s gonna panic and think, ‘Oh, my gosh, we need somebody new now,’ because none of the others are suitable to them. Including Newt. Newt’s not suitable to them, either. But the debates are gonna kick back in again once we get close to Michigan and then we’ve got Super Tuesday.

“The debates will kick back up and if Newt has stellar performance. Given the roller-coaster nature of the results of these primaries, anything can still happen.”