September 8, 2012

Obama tries to renew magic; Romney hits defense cuts

The presidential candidates appeal to voters in the swing states of Florida and Virginia.

By JIM KUHNHENN and THOMAS BEAUMONT The Associated Press

SEMINOLE, Fla. - Eager to change the subject after a dismal jobs report, President Obama tried to rekindle some of the enthusiasm of his 2008 campaign Saturday with a bus tour through a must-win swath of Florida, urging supporters not to "buy into the cynicism that somehow the change we fought for isn't possible."

Republican candidate Mitt Romney faulted both his own party in Congress and Obama for exposing the armed forces to huge spending cuts.

Obama, speaking to a crowd of 11,000 at the Seminole campus of St. Petersburg College, gave Floridians a populist plea not to "turn away now."

"If you give up the idea that your voice can make a difference," Obama said, "then other folks are going to fill the void: the lobbyists, the special interests, the people who are writing $10 million checks, the folks who are trying to keep people from voting" and more.

Campaigning in a state where the 8.8 percent jobless rate tops the national average, the president made no mention of Friday's government report showing a weak employment outlook for the nation. But he urged people to help him "finish what we started," and he put creating more jobs at the top of his to-do list.

The president called on people to rally behind "real, achievable goals that will lead to new jobs and more opportunity."

Romney, campaigning in Virginia's military-dependent tidewater area, was determined to keep the spotlight on the country's weak jobs outlook, laid out in the latest Labor Department report on unemployment. It was the first topic he raised in an appearance before a flag-waving audience of 4,000 in a hangar at the private Military Aviation Museum, with vintage aircraft on display around him.

"This is not the kind of news that the American people are hoping for and deserve," he said. Then he projected forward to a Romney presidency to add: "I'm here to tell you that things are about to get a lot better."

Speaking in the Navy town of Virginia Beach, where many jobs are tied to defense, Romney criticized the president both for past cuts to military spending and "unthinkable" potential reductions threatened under the so-called "sequestration." That's a series of automatic, across-the-board cuts that will take effect if Congress doesn't reach a budget solution in the next few months. Half of the cuts are to come from the Pentagon under a deal negotiated between Obama and Republican leaders in Congress.

"I think it was a mistake for Republicans to go along with it," Romney said in an interview taped for Sunday's broadcast of "Meet the Press" on NBC. On the stage, he'd only blamed the president for the defense cuts.

Obama has opposed the depth of the cuts but has said congressional Republicans need to adopt a plan that includes increases in revenue.

Romney called the potential cuts "unthinkable to Virginia, to our employment needs. But it's also unthinkable to the ability and the commitment of America to maintain our liberty. ... If I'm president, we'll get rid of the sequestration cuts and rebuild America's military might."

From Virginia Beach, Romney headed for NASCAR territory, prime ground for working-class white voters. He planned to attend the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway.

Romney and Obama are deadlocked in Virginia, where the Democrat is strong in the northern suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Romney does better in the southern and rural areas.

In Florida, where the race also is extremely tight, the president's two-day, 260-mile trip in a fortified, million-dollar bus is taking him though the center of the state along the politically important I-4 corridor that separates Democratic-leaning southern Florida from the Republican-leaning north. The center swath from Tampa and St. Petersburg through Orlando and on to the Atlantic coast is considered the state's swing region.

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