Politics
Election 2012: 2 days to go – Obama and Romney in bruising race to the finish
Romney has shifted sharply in recent weeks to appeal to the political center and highlights what he says was his bipartisan record as governor of Democratic-leaning Massachusetts. Romney, who during the Republican primary campaign once described himself as “severely conservative,” is aggressively courting the narrow slice of undecided voters, largely women and moderates, who have yet to settle on a candidate.
“I won’t just represent one party, I’ll represent one nation,” the presidential candidate declared Saturday in his revised campaign speech that he delivered at stops Saturday from New Hampshire to Colorado.
In the final days of his final campaign, Obama has been imploring crowds at his rallies, and the wider electorate, to let him finish what he started. The nation has been bruised by recession and war, he contends, but remains resilient and is coming back. At stake, he says, is a fight for the middle class.
“The folks at the very top in this country, they don’t need another champion in Washington. They’ve got lobbyists. … They’ve always got a seat at the table,” Obama said Saturday in Ohio, a state at the heart of his re-election strategy. “But people who need a champion are the Americans whose letters I read every night — the men and women I meet on the campaign trail every day.”
The president’s rallies are aimed at boosting Democratic enthusiasm and motivating as many supporters as possible to cast their votes, either in the final hours of early voting or on Tuesday, Election Day. Persuading undecided voters, now just a tiny sliver of the electorate in battleground states, has become a secondary priority.
Obama and former President Bill Clinton drew 24,000 people to an outdoor rally in Bristow, Virginia, on a cold Saturday night.
Clinton, his voice hoarse after a week of campaigning, said he had “given my voice in the service of my president.” But that didn’t stop him from launching into a 30-minute defence of Obama and his economic policies.
