Republican presidential candidate Mitt
Romney barnstormed Ohio on Wednesday amid signs that the battleground state,
and perhaps others, is slipping farther from his grasp.
With President Obama also campaigning in
the state, Romney sharpened his economic and deficit message on a daylong bus
tour through the rainy Buckeye State, an unusually busy day for a candidate who
hasn't done a lot of multiple campaign events on the road lately.
The stepped-up campaigning came six weeks
before election day as a series of new polls shows Romney falling behind Obama
in several swing states - including Ohio, Florida and Virginia - as well as on
major issues.
Swing-state polls
He now trails by an average of 5.2
percentage points in Ohio, 4.5 points in Virginia, 4.2 points in Nevada, 4
points in Iowa and 3.1 points in Florida, according to data compiled by the
nonpartisan website RealClearPolitics.com.
Romney on Wednesday was looking to boost
his standing as he heads toward a potentially make-or-break showdown with Obama
in the first of three debates next Wednesday.
Speaking at a rally in a high school gym in
Westerville, Romney assailed the president for his stewardship of the troubled
economy.
"Do we really want four more years
where half the kids coming out of college can't find work, college-level
work?" Romney asked the more than 1,000 supporters in the audience.
"No!" they responded.
Key to strategy
"I don't think we can afford four more
years like the last four years."
Ohio is crucial for Romney. No Republican
has won the presidency without winning Ohio, and given the leanings of other
states, there's no visible electoral map strategy that the former Massachusetts
governor can craft to win the White House without Ohio, analysts said.
"The math just doesn't support it, and
the Obama people know that if he (Obama) wins Ohio, it's game over," said
David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron.
Obama carried the state by five percentage
points in 2008. But Republicans have made significant inroads in Ohio since
then - taking back the governor's mansion and winning more seats in Congress -
giving them hope that the state would stay in the Republican column for Romney.
In Westerville, Jim and Rhonda Britt
proudly wore Romney-for-president buttons and carried Romney signs. They
struggled to understand why he seemed to be losing ground to the president in
Ohio polls.
"I don't think the polling is
correct," said Jim Britt, 55, who owns a Columbus delivery service.
"I see more energy from Romney than I did from John McCain" when he
ran for president in 2008.
Romney pressed his economic message here
after Ohio unemployment figures released last week showed marked improvement in
some parts of the state. Ohio's overall rate - 7.2 percent - is lower than the
national average, and state jobless figures showed that it had dropped even
more in some counties last month. In central Ohio, where Romney began
Wednesday, the unemployment rate improved to 6.1 percent in August from 6.4
percent in July, the lowest rate in four years.
In Bowling Green, Obama attributed the
state's improving economy in part to the auto industry bailout, which he backed
and Romney opposed. One of eight Ohio workers is tied to the industry.
'Falling on his face'
Obama also mocked Romney for his remark
calling the 47 percent of Americans on government assistance
"victims."
"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," the president said.
William Blair, a retired city public-works
director who attended the rally at Bowling Green State University, said the
president's policies were starting to resonate.
"I think Obama is getting his message
out. Romney is falling on his face," said Blair.
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