WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama returned to full-force campaigning Thursday, ending a three-day pause to manage the federal response to the historic storm that battered the East Coast. He holds slim leads in many of the key U.S. battleground states five days before the Nov. 6 election.
Polling,
however, also shows Obama locked in a tie nationwide with Republican
challenger Mitt Romney, who tempered his criticism of the president this
week to avoid the appearance of seeking political advantage in the
midst of a natural disaster.
Both candidates faced a day of trying
to strike the right tone in an intensely stressful race. Romney aimed
at patriotism and the heartland in his first speech of the day,
mentioning Boy Scouts, football, “America the Beautiful” and the flag.
He also returned to criticism of Obama on economic issues, the most
important in this election.
Obama’s lead in a majority of the nine
so-called battleground states could determine the outcome. Those states
are neither reliably Republican nor Democratic, giving them outsized
importance in the U.S. system for choosing the president. The winner is
not the candidate with the most popular votes nationwide but the one who
manages to accumulate at least 270 electoral votes in state-by-state
contests. Those votes are determined by a combination of a state’s
population and representation in Congress.
Despite a Romney surge
nationwide after the three presidential debates, polling shows Obama
holding on to leads in enough of the all-important swing states — most
notably Ohio — to win at least the necessary 270 electors. No Republican
candidate for the White House has ever won the election without
capturing Ohio.
Both candidates are battling to win over the thin
slice of the electorate that remains undecided while ensuring that their
supporters go to the polls. Superstorm Sandy was bound to hurt turnout
in hard-hit New Jersey and New York, but both are heavily Democratic,
and it was unlikely to have a significant effect on results. Election
officials were promising every effort to have polls open or direct
voters to alternative locations where necessary.
This week’s storm, and the federal government response to the devastation, could serve to cause voters to make up their minds.
The
contest between Obama and Romney, at heart, has been an argument over
the role of the federal government in the lives of Americans. Obama
believes Washington can have a positive effect. Romney believes the
government should become much smaller and, therefore, collect much less
in taxes.
Obama has been given high marks, even from some of his
harshest Republican critics, for his handling of this week’s storm
crisis and the dispatch of massive federal aid to victims. Romney has
been forced to answer questions about his earlier campaign statements
that the key federal emergency relief organization, the Federal
Emergency Management Agency or FEMA, should turn its role over to the
states.
As his campaign resumes, Obama will try to make up for
lost time with a heavy travel itinerary in the coming days, including
rallies Thursday in Wisconsin, Nevada and Colorado.
Obama
spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said the president remains focused on the
storm recovery, but must resume campaigning because of the “reality” of
Tuesday’s election and the need to continue making the case for
Americans to give him four more years in the White House.
The
partisan sniping continued this week from the candidates’ surrogates and
their running mates. Much of it focused on Romney’s new television and
radio ads in critical Ohio that suggest automakers General Motors and
Chrysler are adding jobs in China at the expense of workers in the
Midwestern swing state. Vice President Joe Biden said the spots were
“one of the most flagrantly dishonest ads I can ever remember.”
Even automakers protested the ads.
Obama’s
campaign planned to keep pressing its criticism of the ads as it seeks
to block Romney’s prospects for a breakthrough in Ohio and other
Midwestern states where the auto industry is deeply important to the
economy.
The Republican ticket hasn’t backed away from the ad.
Running mate Paul Ryan said in a statement that “American taxpayers are
on track to lose $25 billion as a result of President Obama’s handling
of the auto bailout, and GM and Chrysler are expanding their production
overseas.”
In fact, Chrysler is adding 1,100 jobs to its plant in
Toledo, Ohio. It’s also adding production facilities in China as demand
for cars there grows. Because of trade rules, it’s easier for companies
to build cars for the Chinese market in China. It’s also more efficient.
Japanese automakers, for example, have plants in the U.S. to meet
American demand.
Romney was campaigning Thursday in Virginia, while Ryan was appearing at events in Nevada and Colorado.
Biden
had two events scheduled in Iowa. Obama was starting his day in
Wisconsin, making up an event that was canceled earlier in the week
because of the storm. He had a rally planned later in Las Vegas, as well
as Boulder, Colorado, a heavily Democratic area.
More than 19
million people have already voted in the presidential, either by mail or
in person. No votes will be counted until Nov. 6, but some key states
are releasing the party affiliation of those who have voted.
Democrats
have an edge in votes cast in battleground states Florida, Iowa,
Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. Republicans have an advantage in
Colorado.
