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| Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop at American Spring Wire, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012, in Bedford Heights, Ohio. |
WESTERVILLE, Ohio
(AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said
Wednesday that he understands the struggles of working families and has
the know-how to fix them as he sought to counteract fallout from a
secret video that President Barack Obama won't let him live down.
With
polls showing the president ahead in key swing states that will decide
the race, the White House expressed confidence. "As time progresses, you
know, the field is looking like it's narrowing for them," campaign
spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One as Obama
headed for his own rallies in Ohio. "And so in that sense we'd rather be
us than them."
Obama was stopping at two
college campuses in the hunt for the state's 18 electoral votes, while
Romney was here for a second straight day on a bus emblazoned with,
"More Jobs, More Take-Home Pay." Losing the state would dramatically
narrow Romney's path to the 270 Electoral College votes it takes to win
the
White House - and no Republican has ever lost Ohio and won the
presidency.
Romney's pitch for working-class
men was far from subtle. He campaigned at a factory that makes
commercial spring wire, touring the noisy plant floor in goggles and
rolled-up shirt sleeves alongside television's king of macho, Discovery
Channel's "Dirty Jobs" host Mike Rowe. The pair spoke later from a stage
set with hard hat-wearing workers, giant coils of steel wire, open
metal cross beams and yellow caution signs in the background.
The
economy during Obama's presidency has been especially hard on male
blue-collar workers. But secretly recorded video of Romney telling
donors he doesn't need to worry about the 47 percent of Americans who
don't pay income taxes and "believe that they are victims" has
distracted from his argument that blue-collar men should throw Obama out
over his fiscal record.
Obama continued to
remind voters of Romney's secretly recorded remarks in television ads
and a speech at Bowling Green State University.
"Look,
I don't believe we can get very far with leaders who write off half the
nation as a bunch of victims who never take responsibility for their
own lives," Obama said. "I've got to tell you, as I travel around Ohio
and as I look out on this crowd, I don't see a lot of victims. I see
hard working Ohioans."
At an earlier stop
outside Columbus, Romney touted his business experience as reason he can
do better. "I care about the people of America. The difference between
me and President Obama is I know what to do and I will do what it takes
to get this economy going," Romney said to a standing ovation from
supporters.
Romney also released a 60-second
television ad with a new, softer approach than the negative ads
dominating the airways. It's unclear how much - if at all - the
commercial will air on television, but it echoed Romney's compassionate
pitch from the campaign trial. The candidate, in an open-collar shirt,
speaks into the camera about the struggles of living paycheck to
paycheck and trying to pay for necessities like food and gas on falling
incomes.
"President Obama and I both care
about poor and middle-class families," Romney says. "The difference is
my policies will make things better for them."
And
Romney's new insistence that he's the better candidate to help
middle-class families comes after his campaign's recent announcement
that he'll do more to describe what he would do as president. At his
morning rally, Romney stood in front of a running national debt clock
and focused on Obama's handling of the debt and the interest piling up.
Romney's
comments follow a Washington Post poll that shows the federal debt and
deficit are the one set of issues on which he has an advantage over
Obama with likely voters. In recent weeks, Romney has lost his polling
edge on the economy generally, with more people saying they now trust
Obama to fix the nation's economic woes.
The
gym couldn't hold all the people who came to see Romney at Alum Creek
Park, and he stopped by an overflow room to shake hands with those who
couldn't get in to see him in person. As he was leaving, one supporter
told him: "Please get us out of this mess."
Introducing
Romney was golfing great Jack Nicklaus, an Ohio native. Romney's
campaign produced signs that read, "The Golden Bear for Romney/Ryan,"
featuring the campaign logo and a silhouette of Nicklaus swinging a
club. "I certainly didn't apologize for my success," Nicklaus told the
audience to cheers.
Obama planned to campaign
later Wednesday at Kent State University, hoping to generate the kind of
enthusiasm among young voters that helped fuel his victory four years
ago. Romney focused on major metropolitan areas of the state where large
numbers of voters live.
Buoyed by signs of an
improving economy, Obama has the edge in polls in Ohio six weeks from
Election Day. The president has led Romney in a series of recent surveys
in the state, with a Washington Post poll on Tuesday showing Obama with
a lead that was outside the poll's margin of error. A CBS/New York
Times poll also showed Obama ahead here. Even on handling of the
economy, where Romney until recently had an advantage, Obama now leads.
