Jobs issue lurks on Obama’s campaign
Gov. Bobby Jindal talks with Ann Barrick of Maumee, Ohio, center, and her daughter Allison Barrick, right, during a stop at a hotel in Maumee, Ohio, on Thursday. Jindal and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota made a campaign appearance on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Jindal shadowing president on trail
SANDUSKY, Ohio — Campaigning by bus through swing state Ohio, President Barack Obama cast his re-election bid as a bet on the American worker Thursday, even as he braced for a Friday unemployment report that will help set campaign battle lines.
Close on Obama’s heels, Gov. Bobby Jindal was part of a Republican group appearing on behalf of Republican candidate Mitt Romney in some of the same towns Obama is touring.
Obama chose to start his summer of on-the-road campaigning in two political battleground states that have a rosier economic outlook than some parts of the nation. Both Ohio and Pennsylvania had unemployment rates of 7.3 percent in May, well below the national average of 8.2 percent.
As he kicked off Thursday’s 250-mile trip in Maumee, Ohio, Obama said he had “refused to turn my back on communities like this one.”
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty joined Jindal in the Republican effort to counter Obama’s appeal to voters. Pawlenty and Jindal are considered potential vice presidential nominees.
“We should all bet on the country, but we shouldn’t double down on Barack Obama,” Pawlenty said Thursday. “He’s had his chance. It’s not working. And we need to get it moving in a different direction.”
Romney rolled his own bus tour through six states last month, including the two Obama is visiting this week. And more are certain to come in the next few months for both candidates.
Romney, chiming in from his family vacation in New Hampshire, criticized Obama for hitting the road with “no new answers” on the economy.
The president, speaking at an early 19th-century museum complex dotted with red-white-and-blue bunting and American flags, claimed credit for Ohio’s improving economy, especially its rejuvenated automobile industry. The White House said the Obama-backed auto bailout helped dramatically increase sales of Chrysler’s Jeep Wrangler and Liberty, made in nearby Toledo.
Obama said Ohio’s economic gains could be replicated nationwide.
“There are some folks who are betting that you will lose interest, that are betting that somehow you are going to lose heart,” Obama said. “I’m betting you’re not going to lose interest. I’m betting you’re not going to lose heart. I still believe on you, I’m betting on you.”
In an economic appeal to working class voters, the president also announced his administration was launching an unfair trade complaint against China with the World Trade Organization.
The complaint centers on new Chinese duties on American-made cars that the U.S. contends violate international trade rules.
And Obama defended his health care overhaul during his first campaign appearance since the law was upheld by the Supreme Court.
“The law I passed is here to stay,” he said. “It is going to make the vast majority of Americans more secure.”
Romney has vowed to repeal the health care overhaul if elected, and Republicans believe that position can be a winning one. But much of the attention since the ruling last week has been on debate within the party over whether the law’s insurance mandate is a tax or a penalty. A tax, Romney said Wednesday, contradicting an adviser’s comments of a few days earlier.
Friday’s jobs report was on many minds, too. Obama aides have been anxiously awaiting the new numbers, which follow a dismal May report that showed an uptick in the unemployment rate to 8.2 percent and raised concerns about a further economic slowdown.
The latest economic indicators have been mixed. U.S. manufacturing shrank in June for the first time in nearly three years, according to a report this week. Private payroll provider ADP reported Thursday that U.S. businesses added 176,000 jobs last month, better than the revised total of 136,000 jobs it reported for May. But shoppers pulled back on spending in June, leading to sluggish retail sales during the month.
Some Ohio voters said the auto bailout was still a plus for Obama. “The bailout will certainly help him. It’s definitely working,” said Linda Schneider of Maumee.
But Thomas Hutton of Toledo said it the bailout would not be a defining campaign issue. “It’s a side issue. The big ones are the economy and health care,” he said.
The bus trip marked a new phase of Obama’s re-election campaign as he takes a more retail-oriented approach before the September Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C. Among his events in Ohio on Thursday was an ice cream social in Sandusky and remarks in a park in Parma, a suburb of Cleveland.
Obama, dressed casually in a short-sleeved shirt and khaki pants, sprinkled his campaign speeches with personal references, telling the crowd about his oldest daughter Malia’s 14th birthday and promising his popular wife Michelle Obama would come see them in Ohio soon.
As Obama made his way from Maumee to Sandusky, Ohio, he made an unannounced stop at Kozy Corners, a diner in the town of Oak Harbor, where he greeted the lunchtime crowd. And he bought fruit at a roadside stand along the shores of Lake Erie, where he picked up a dozen ears of corn, plus some peaches and cherries
Obama also sought to extend the reach of his bus tour by taping interviews with six Ohio TV stations.
Friday’s schedule includes a stop at an elementary school in Poland, Ohio, near Youngstown, followed by a speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Recent polls by Quinnipiac University found that Obama held a 9-percentage-point lead over Romney in Ohio and a 6-point lead in Pennsylvania. Obama won both states in the 2008 election.
Associated Press writers
Julie Pace and Ken Thomas
in Washington and
John Seewer in Ohio
contributed to this report.