Last Thursday, President Barack Obama defended his economic policies to assure Americans that the election will define the country’s growth prospects over the next decade and beyond.
Before starting the two-day bus tour through northern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, Obama said he is convinced that voters have lost interest in the November elections. Despite the current political stalemate in Congress, he is hopeful in seeing positive results come election day.
The president said that the political system is at a crossroads. He said that if his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, arrived at the White House, economic policies applied for the rich will be at the expense of the middle class.
Obama reiterated he was willing to work with “anyone who believes we’re in this together”.
“I’m a Democrat first, but an American first and foremost,” Obama said in a place that looked like a campaign setting par excellence: an early nineteenth-century museums were placed on the ornaments in red, white and blue, as well as banners and American flags.
“I’m a Democrat, but an American first and foremost,” Obama said at his campaign event last Thursday. The event was the first event since the Supreme Court ruled for his reform public health system last week. Obama defended the radical changes in the system.
“The legislation I signed is here to stay,” he said. “It will make the vast majority of Americans safer.”
The president stressed that a strong auto industry has helped both Ohio’s economy and Pennsylvania. He also added that the Jeep plant in nearby Toledo is hiring.
Obama said his experience in both states, where unemployment is below the national average, can be replicated around the country. He added that he is running for a second term to ensure that.
“There are some who are betting that you will lose interest. They’re betting that you will lose heart in some way, but here you are, despite the heat, “said Obama, wearing a short sleeve shirt on a sunny day.
“I bet you will not lose interest. Bet you will not lose heart. I still believe in you and I’m betting on you. The country is betting on Ohio,” he added.
Maumee was the first stop of the 402 kilometer tour which Obama will be carrying on a bus escorted by the Secret Service. He will visit several communities in northern Ohio where he received strong support in the 2008 presidential election. The trip will also take him west of Pennsylvania, which includes a stop in Pittsburgh.
Obama won Ohio and Pennsylvania four years ago, but Romney and the Republicans are making many efforts to win in both states in the coming elections.
The president will campaign in both states as authorities broadcast the latest monthly assessment of job creation in the nation. Each state had an unemployment rate of 7.3% in May, below the national average of 8.2%.
With just four months to the election, polls show Obama slightly ahead of Romney nationally and in several states that are key in the search for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the elections on November 6.
