United States polls in final stretch

BATTLEGROUND. President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally on Friday at Lima Senior High School in Lima, Ohio, one of the hotly contested battleground states. AFP

CLEVELAND, Ohio—President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney on Saturday powered into a final weekend of campaigning before handing their fates to voters after a bitter, grueling race for the White House.

The rivals will chase one another through the battleground states that will decide Tuesday’s election, with Obama seeking to solidify his midwestern line of defense, while Romney seeks an eleventh hour breakthrough.

Obama will campaign in Ohio, the possible tipping point state, before heading to Wisconsin and Iowa, his trio of “firewall” battlegrounds ahead of a late night rally in Virginia, where he still hopes for an insurance win.

Romney, fresh from the biggest rally of his campaign, which drew around 18,000 people on a cold night in West Chester, Ohio, on Friday will travel to New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado.

In a show of close combat on the last weekend of the campaign, both candidates will be in the eastern Iowa town of Dubuque, within hours of one another.

Romney warmed up for the frenzied last weekend with a huge rally in Ohio, bringing together his former primary rivals Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, along with Obama’s 2008 rival John McCain.

In all, 45 lawmakers and relatives of the candidate and running mate Paul Ryan—wearing Romney jackets—attended the rally near the Republican stronghold of Cincinnati.

“We’re almost home. One final push will get us there,” Romney said before a crowd police estimated to be at least 18,000 strong. “We are so very, very close. The door to a brighter future is there, it’s open, it’s waiting for us.”

More jobs

Obama had earlier evaded a last-minute time bomb as the economy pumped out more jobs than expected in October, delivering a boost to his reelection hopes as the final weekend of campaigning began.

Obama and Romney both tried to seize on the monthly jobs report to energize their bases and sway the few undecided voters still out there. The numbers held something for both candidates, showing the monthly unemployment rate ticked up slightly but created far more jobs than expected.

Obama argued the report proved his policies over the last four years have put the United States on the road to recovery. The Democractic incumbent warned voters that a Romney presidency would resurrect the policies that got the United States into financial trouble in the first place under his Republican predecessor George W. Bush.

Romney called the report a “sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill” and warned grimly of political paralysis and another recession if Obama reclaims the White House.

Obama will face voters with the highest unemployment rate of any incumbent since Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The government report showed the United States added a solid 171,000 jobs in October, and more than a half-million Americans joined the work force, the latest signs that the uneven economic recovery is gaining strength once again. But the unemployment rate inched up to 7.9 percent because not all those joining the work force found work.

It was the final snapshot of the economy before the election on Tuesday.

While the politically neutral report was unlikely to affect the election outcome, it brought the economy back into the national conversation in a country still preoccupied with the devastation wrought by Superstorm “Sandy” on the US East Coast.

REPUBLICAN. challenger Mitt Romney holds a rally in West Allis, Wisconsin, on Friday as he and President Barack Obama enter the final stretch of the campaign. Romney is seeking to overhaul Obama’s slim lead. AFP

Obama paused his campaigning for three days this week to manage the natural disaster. Romney muted criticism of the President during those days for fear of appearing to seek political advantage while Americans were suffering, and his campaign watched awkwardly as a once-prominent Obama critic, New Jersey’s Republican Gov. Chris Christie, praised the President and toured storm damage with him.

Solidifying position

After several weeks of polls suggesting a neck-and-neck race, there were new signs that Obama’s position, as he seeks a second term, may be solidifying.

National polls of the popular vote now mostly show a tied race or with either man up one point—but with time running out Obama’s position in key battleground states seems to be holding.

The candidate that wins the White House will need to mass 270 electoral votes on the state-by-state map.

Obama is asking voters for a second term, despite the sluggish economic recovery, while Romney is seeking a quick comeback for Republicans after George W. Bush left office in 2009 with the party in disarray.

All Obama’s polling leads were within the margin of error, however, and both campaigns, though expressing confidence, will face a nervous night as results roll in on Tuesday and test their assumptions about the race.

Obama, perhaps mindful of millions of Americans suffering from the lingering impact of the worst recession since the 1930s, avoided a triumphal tone on the jobs data that sent relief rippling through his campaign team.

Economy improving

The release of the final major economic data before the election had worried Obama aides who feared that a leap in the rate above the psychological 8-percent mark could have sent late-deciding voters to Romney.

But although the data was far from spectacular—with 171,000 jobs created last month—there was enough in the report, including upward revisions of previous monthly figures, for Obama to argue the economy was improving.

“We have made real progress. But we’ve got more work to do,” Obama said, in Hilliard, on the first stop of a daylong swing through small towns in Ohio, which could be a tipping point state in a tied-up election.

Romney highlighted the fact that, although the economy is creating jobs at a moderate pace, unemployment remains at historically high levels.

“For four years, President Obama’s policies have crushed America’s middle class,” Romney said in a statement.

“When I’m president, I’m going to make real changes that lead to a real recovery, so that the next four years are better than the last,” said Romney, who started his day in Wisconsin and ended it in Ohio.

Massaging facts

Obama, campaigning in Ohio on Friday repudiated Romney’s claim to being an agent of change, accusing him instead of trying to “massage the facts,” highlighting a Romney ad that claims that Chrysler plans to outsource jobs to China to produce its Jeep vehicles.

“I know we are close to an election, but this isn’t a game. These are people’s jobs. These are people’s lives,” Obama said, noting that auto bosses had directly contradicted Romney on the attack.

The President repeatedly touts his decision to bail out indebted US automakers in a politically unpopular 2009 move that helped restore the industry to health.

One in eight jobs in Ohio are linked to the sector, and Romney’s opposition to the bailout has emerged as a liability for the Republican.

Obama leads

A CNN/Opinion Research poll showed Obama up three points in Ohio, raising his average in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of opinion surveys in the state to 2.4 points.

The President also leads Romney in enough of the eight or so swing states to assure himself of the 270 electoral votes needed for reelection, if polling data is confirmed by voting.

 First posted 12:37 am | Sunday, November 4th, 2012