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September 4, 2012

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Obama camp revamps economic message

US President Barack Obama's campaign surrogates, a day before Democrats open their national convention, were trying yesterday to put their economic message back in positive territory after a weekend acknowledging the Republican claims that Americans are not better off four years after the president swept into the White House on a message of hope and change.

Obama will address an auto workers rally in Toledo to mark the Labor Day holiday before getting his first look at the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac in a stricken parish outside New Orleans. He planned to meet emergency personnel who've been laboring since the storm hit last week to restore power and tend to thousands of evacuees from flooded lands.

Romney, meanwhile, said the Labor Day holiday, the symbolic end of the summer vacation season in the United States, marked "another day of worrying" for too many Americans anxious about finding a job.

Polls show the close race between two candidates with polar opposite political philosophies, especially on the economy, depends on who can convince a majority of voters they can lead the US out of the stubborn economic doldrums that persist in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown and the Great Recession.

Polls show most Americans continue to fault Obama's Republican predecessor George W. Bush as author of the economic malaise. Most Republicans blame Obama for failing to turn things around during his years in the White House.

Romney hit that theme hard in a statement marking Labor Day as "a chance to celebrate the strong American work ethic," adding: "For far too many Americans, today is another day of worrying when their next paycheck will come."

Obama's backers were up early to try a morning do-over of his supporters' less-than-rosy answers on Sunday when asked to answer the classic campaign question: Are Americans better off than they were four years ago? "Absolutely," said Stephanie Cutter, Obama's deputy campaign manager, speaking on NBC television. "By any measure the country has moved forward over the last four years. It might not be as fast as some people would've hoped. The president agrees with that."

Martin O'Malley, Maryland's Democratic governor, had answered the same question with a "no" on Sunday before turning the blame to Bush. On CNN yesterday, O'Malley tried a more positive turn of phrase, saying, "We are clearly better off as a country because we're now creating jobs rather than losing them. But we have not recovered all that we lost in the Bush recession. That's why we need to continue to move forward" under Obama.



 

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