President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden campaigned in Ohio Tuesday. At Dayton’s triangle park, he urged supporters to vote early and worked to fire up the base two weeks before the election. Mr. Obama accused Republican challenger Mitt Romney of being all over the map on foreign policy, education, and hit him hard on his position on the auto industry.
“The people don’t forget. The people of Dayton don’t forget. The people of Ohio don’t forget,” said Obama. “If Mitt Romney had been President when the auto industry was on the verge of collapse, we might not have an American auto industry today. We’d be buying cars from china instead of selling cars to China. And you know how important is to Ohio. The auto industry supports one in eight Ohio jobs.”
9,500 people came to see the President speak. Kyle Lebow a student at the University of Dayton.
“I’m a tremendous fan, both his domestic policies and abroad,” says Lebow. “I come from a union family and my father’s a firefighter. The Democratic Party has provided tremendous union support and I want to do everything I can to keep that going. We feel that they’re the backbone of the middle class.”
The Dayton rally drew people from all over the state and in some cases all over the country. Community Voices Producer Basim Blunt spoke with Massachussets resident Clayton Kennedy.
Blunt: Ok, what brings you here to Dayton and for the rally today?
%22I%20think%20that%20he%20was%20very%20clear%20and%20he%20was%20clear%20with%20his%20plan%20for%20continued%20progress%20and%20he%20was%20able%20to%20establish%20that%20he%20has%20moved%20us%20forward%20from%204%20years%20ago.
Kennedy: I was doing business in Columbus heard Obama was going to be here and had to show up, I was overwhelmed to see the people, the line, kind of snaking through triangle park this morning already at 9 o’clock, that was amazing. And then the energy being there from 8:00 amtill about 3:50 pm when he arrived. I think that he was very clear and he was clear with his plan for continued progress and he was able to establish that he has moved us forward from 4 years ago.”
Local resident Talana Warren remarked that “I would like to thank Romney because he really helped gear me back up into this campaign because the things that he’s saying are senseless and they’ll just throw us right back to where we were before.”
Obama is touring through 6 battleground states that wraps up Thursday when he returns to Ohio for another rally in Cleveland.
**Community Voices Producer Basim Blunt contributed to this report