Obama: Recovery path hard, challenge ‘can be met’

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama hugs his wife First lady Michelle Obama at the Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion in Char­lotte, N.C., on Thurs­day. (Assoaicted Press | Lynne Sladky)

DAVID ESPO

ROBERT FURLOW

Asso­ci­ated Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — His re-election in doubt, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama con­ceded only halt­ing progress Thurs­day night toward fix­ing the nation’s stub­born eco­nomic woes, but vowed in a Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion finale, “Our prob­lems can be solved, our chal­lenges can be met.”

“The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a bet­ter place,” Obama declared in advance excerpts of a prime-time speech to del­e­gates and the nation.

The president’s speech was the final act of a pair of highly scripted national polit­i­cal con­ven­tions in as many weeks, and the open­ing salvo of a two-month drive toward Elec­tion Day that pits Obama against Repub­li­can rival Mitt Rom­ney. The con­test is close for the White House in a dreary sea­son of eco­nomic strug­gle for millions.

In the run-up to Obama’s speech, del­e­gates erupted in tumul­tuous cheers when for­mer Ari­zona Rep. Gabrielle Gif­fords, griev­ously wounded in a 2011 assas­si­na­tion attempt, walked onstage to lead the Pledge of Alle­giance. The cheers grew louder when she blew kisses to the crowd.

And louder still when huge video screens inside the hall showed the face of Osama bin Laden, the ter­ror­ist mas­ter­mind killed in a dar­ing raid on his Pak­istani hide­out by U.S. spe­cial oper­a­tions forces — on a mis­sion approved by the cur­rent com­man­der in chief.

With unem­ploy­ment at 8.3 per­cent, Obama said the task of recov­er­ing from the eco­nomic dis­as­ter of 2008 is exceeded in Amer­i­can his­tory only by the chal­lenge Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt faced when he took office in the Great Depres­sion in 1933.

“It will require com­mon effort, shared respon­si­bil­ity and the kind of bold per­sis­tent exper­i­men­ta­tion” that FDR employed, Obama said.

In an appeal to inde­pen­dent vot­ers who might be con­sid­er­ing a vote for Rom­ney, he added that those who carry on Roosevelt’s legacy “should remem­ber that not every prob­lem can be reme­died with another gov­ern­ment pro­gram or dic­tate from Washington.”

The hall was filled to capac­ity long before Obama stepped to the podium, and offi­cials shut off the entrances because of a fear of over­crowd­ing for a speech that the cam­paign had orig­i­nally slated for the 74,000-seat foot­ball sta­dium nearby. Aides said weather con­cerns prompted the move to the con­ven­tion arena, capac­ity 15,000 or so.

Obama’s cam­paign said the pres­i­dent would ask the coun­try to rally around a “real achiev­able plan that will cre­ate jobs, expand oppor­tu­nity and ensure an econ­omy built to last.”

He added, “The truth is it will take more than a few years for us to solve chal­lenges that have built up over a decade.”

The evening also included a nom­i­na­tion accep­tance speech from Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, whose appeal to blue col­lar vot­ers rivals or even exceeds Obama’s own. Del­e­gates approved his nom­i­na­tion to a new term by accla­ma­tion as he and his fam­ily watched from VIP seats above the con­ven­tion floor.

Biden told the con­ven­tion in his own speech that he had watched as Obama “made one gutsy deci­sion after another” to stop an eco­nomic free-fall after they took office in 2009.

Now, he said, “we’re on a mis­sion to move this nation for­ward — from doubt and down­turn to promise and pros­per­ity. … Amer­ica has turned the corner.”

With Obama in the hall lis­ten­ing, Biden jabbed at the president’s chal­lenger, as well.

“I found it fas­ci­nat­ing last week — when Gov­er­nor Rom­ney said that as Pres­i­dent he’d take a jobs tour. Well with all his sup­port for out­sourc­ing — it’s going to have to be a for­eign trip.”

First lady Michelle Obama, pop­u­lar with the pub­lic, was ready to intro­duce her hus­band, two nights after she deliv­ered her own speech in the convention’s open­ing session.

Del­e­gates who packed into their con­ven­tion hall were ser­e­naded by singer James Tay­lor and rocked by R&B blues artist Mary J. Blige as they awaited Obama’s speech.

There was no end to the jabs aimed at Rom­ney and the Republicans.

“Ask Osama bin Laden if he’s bet­ter off than four years ago,” said Mass­a­chu­setts Sen. John Kerry, who lost the 2004 elec­tion in a close con­test with Pres­i­dent George W. Bush. It was a mock­ing answer to the Repub­li­cans’ repeated ques­tion of whether Amer­i­cans are bet­ter off than when Obama took office.

The cam­paign focus was shift­ing quickly — to polit­i­cally sen­si­tive monthly unem­ploy­ment fig­ures due out Fri­day morn­ing and the first pres­i­den­tial debate on Oct. 3 in Den­ver. Wall Street hit a four-year high a few hours before Obama’s speech after the Euro­pean Cen­tral Bank laid out a con­crete plan to sup­port the region’s strug­gling countries.

The econ­omy is by far the dom­i­nant issue in the cam­paign, and the dif­fer­ences between Obama and his chal­lenger could hardly be more pronounced.

Rom­ney wants to extend all tax cuts that are due to expire on Dec. 31 with an addi­tional 20 per­cent reduc­tion in rates across the board, argu­ing that job growth would result. He also favors deep cuts in domes­tic pro­grams rang­ing from edu­ca­tion to parks, repeal of the health care leg­is­la­tion that Obama pushed through Con­gress and land­mark changes in Medicare, the pro­gram that pro­vides health care to seniors.

Obama wants to renew the tax cuts except on incomes higher than $250,000, say­ing that mil­lion­aires should con­tribute to an over­all attack on fed­eral deficits. He also crit­i­cizes the spend­ing cuts Rom­ney advo­cates, say­ing they would fall unfairly on the poor, lower-income col­lege stu­dents and oth­ers. He argues that Repub­li­cans would “end Medicare as we know it” and sad­dle seniors with ever-rising costs.

After two weeks of back-to-back con­ven­tions, the impact on the race remained to be determined.

You’re not going to see big bounces in this elec­tion,” said David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser. “For the next 61 days, it’s going to remain tight as a tick.”

Rom­ney wrapped up sev­eral days of debate rehearsals with close aides in Ver­mont and is expected to resume full-time cam­paign­ing in the next day or two.

In a brief stop to talk with vet­er­ans on Thurs­day, he defended his deci­sion to omit men­tion of the war in Afghanistan when he deliv­ered his accep­tance speech last week at the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion. He noted he had spo­ken to the Amer­i­can Legion only one day before.

Romney’s cam­paign released its first new tele­vi­sion ad since the con­ven­tion sea­son began.

It shows Clin­ton sharply ques­tion­ing Obama’s cred­i­bil­ity on the Iraq War in 2008, say­ing “Give me a break, this whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.” Obama was run­ning against Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton at the time for the Demo­c­ra­tic nomination.

It will likely be a week or more before the two cam­paigns can fully digest post-convention polls and adjust their strate­gies for the fall.

Based on the vol­ume of cam­paign appear­ances to date and the hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars spent already on tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing, the elec­tion appears likely to be decided in a small num­ber of bat­tle­ground states. The list includes New Hamp­shire, Vir­ginia, Ohio, Col­orado, Nevada and Iowa, as well as Florida and North Car­olina, the states where first Repub­li­cans and then Democ­rats held their con­ven­tions. Those states hold 100 elec­toral votes among them, out of 270 needed to win the White House.

Money has become an ever-present con­cern for the Democ­rats, an irony given the over­whelm­ing advan­tage Obama held over John McCain in the 2008 campaign.

This time, Rom­ney is out­pac­ing him, and inde­pen­dent groups seek­ing the Republican’s elec­tion are pour­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars into tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing, far exceed­ing what Obama’s sup­port­ers can afford.

Posted by AP News on Sep 6 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.