CLEVELAND: President Barack Obama cast his re-election battle with Mitt Romney as a clash between starkly different economic visions on Thursday and warned that his Republican rival would hollow out the middle class in a speech that could set the tone for months of intense campaigning.
Seeking to gain some footing after a string of bad economic news and a political stumble, Obama said the Nov. 6 election would put the United States on one of two paths: an economy built on education and scientific research that delivers a broadly shared prosperity, or a Republican approach that cuts taxes for the wealthy and undermines opportunity for many others.
“This November, you can remind the world how a strong economy is built – not from the top down, but from a growing, thriving middle class,” Obama told a crowd of 1,500 at a community college gymnasium in Ohio, a politically divided state that could be key in determining who wins the November election. Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was not ceding the battlefield to Obama. Campaigning at the other end of Ohio, he struck first in a speech that ended four minutes before Obama took the stage. With the economic recovery on the verge of stalling for the third summer in a row and Romney having pulled even with the president in voter surveys, Democratic allies have worried Obama could lose the election if he simply tried to convince voters they are better off than when he took office in 2009.
On Thursday, in a somber and deliberately paced presentation that recalled Obama’s days as a law school lecturer, the president described a 20-year history of U.S. economics that began with the prosperous years of Democrat Bill Clinton’s administration.
Obama then described the economic downturn during the administration of his predecessor, Republican President George W. Bush, and warned that Romney appeared ready to follow the same approach to the economy. “We were told that huge tax cuts, especially for the wealthiest Americans, would lead to faster job growth,” Obama said. “We were told that fewer regulations, especially for big financial institutions and corporations, would bring about widespread prosperity. “We were told that it was OK to put two wars on the nation’s credit card; that tax cuts would create enough growth to pay for themselves.” In essence, Obama – whose speech did not include any new economic ideas – appeared to be banking on the notion that voters will consider the U.S. economy’s past and its potential, not just the present, when they vote this fall. (Agencies)