MILWAUKEE (AP) — President Barack Obama
worked to squash GOP hopes for a resurgence of support in pivotal
Wisconsin on Saturday,
pushing back against his GOP rival's arguments against an overly
intrusive government. Mitt Romney countered with his own
pitch to middle-class voters, saying that the president had
fostered a culture of "government dependency" that hinders upward
mobility.
Obama faulted Romney for advancing a top-down economic that "never works."
"The country doesn't succeed when only the folks at the very top are doing well," he said. "We succeed when the middle class
is doing well."
With just six weekends left before Election Day, both men were devoting considerable time to raising campaign cash to bankroll
the deluge of ads already saturating hotly contested states.
Baseball great Hank Aaron, who once wore No. 44 as a player for the Milwaukee Brewers, supplied the star power at Obama's
Milwaukee fundraisers, arguing for the re-election of the 44th president. Romney hunted for West Coast cash, if not votes,
first in San Diego, and was later headed to Los Angeles.
With running mates Joe Biden and Paul Ryan
campaigning in New England and Florida, respectively, the presidential
campaign
was spread far and wide — both geographically and strategically.
Biden revved up union activists poised to canvass for votes
in New Hampshire while Ryan appealed to Hispanic voters in Miami
and talked space policy in Orlando.
It was Obama's first visit to Wisconsin
since February, and the president was intent on shoring up support in
Ryan's home
state. Obama won Wisconsin easily in 2008 but Ryan is popular here
and recent polls have Obama up by single digits. The GOP
showed its organizational strength in fending off efforts to
recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker, but Obama campaign manager
Jim Messina said Democrats "continue to have a strategic
advantage," with more field offices and political infrastructure
in the state.
Obama made the case against Romney before a
crowd at the Milwaukee Theater, countering Romney's call to change
Washington
from the inside with an appeal to voters to help him break through
partisan gridlock with pressure on Congress from the outside.
He said that despite economic troubles, his administration has
made progress and has made "practical and specific" proposals
to create jobs.
"The choice now is do we reverse this," he said.
Romney, in his weekly podcast, said the government's role should be "very different" from what Obama wants to provide.
"Under President Obama, we have a stagnant economy that fosters government dependency," he said. "My policies will create
a growing economy that fosters upward mobility."
In advance of Obama's visit, Romney's
campaign made the argument that Obama's failure to turn around the
economy had Wisconsin
voters looking for a different path. Walker said the president had
a "Wisconsin problem." The state's 7.5 percent unemployment
rate is below the national average, but its manufacturing industry
has been hit hard in recent years.
The Republican National Committee released a web video, "Since You've Been Gone," highlighting recent GOP organizing efforts
in the state and Walker's success in fending off a recall election there.
Messina saw good signs all over, saying, "We're either tied or in the lead in every battleground state 45 days out. I think
you will see a tightening in the national polls going forward."
Ryan, campaigning in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, reinforced Romney's argument that Obama hasn't been able to make
needed changes in Washington, poking at the president's recent comment that it's hard to change Washington from the inside
without mobilizing public pressure on Congress from the outside.
"Why do we send presidents to the White
House in the first place?" Ryan asked. "We send presidents to change and
fix the mess
in Washington, and if this president has admitted that he can't
change Washington, then you know what? We need to change presidents."
He also faulted Obama for a "policy of appeasement" toward the Castro regime in Cuba, saying all the president had done was
"reward more despotism."
Obama has eased restrictions to allow
Americans to travel to Cuba and to let Cuban-Americans to send money to
family on the
island. But the president has stopped well-short of discussing
lifting the 50-year-old economic embargo, which is widely viewed
in Latin America as a failure and has complicated U.S.
relationships in the region.
Campaign spokeswoman Jenn Psaki said the president had supported democracy movements on the island and worked to give people
there more say in their futures.
In an appearance in Orlando, not far from
Florida's space coast, Ryan criticized the president for putting the
U.S. space
program "on a path where we are conceding our global position as
the unequivocal leader in space." The Obama campaign responded
that Ryan has proposed deep cuts in spending for space
exploration.
Underscoring the importance of grass-roots
efforts in the campaign's final days, Biden rallied union workers at a
Teamsters
union hall in Manchester, N.H., saying their organizing work would
be the "antidote" to millions spent on advertising by
Republican-leaning
super PACs.
Biden said it was because of unions that the
U.S. has a strong middle class, and he accused Romney and Ryan of
having "a completely
different value set, a completely different vision."
"They're doubling down on everything that caused the economic crisis in the first place," he said.
Romney is dedicating most of this weekend to
courting donors in California — a state that he's not trying to win. He
attended
a private fundraiser in suburban San Francisco Friday night and
planned to attend at least two more on Saturday in San Diego
and Los Angeles.
The GOP nominee is feeling fundraising pressure: Last month, for the first time in four months, Obama and the Democratic Party
raised more than Romney and the Republican Party, $114 million to $111.6 million.