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Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan sing along with Janna Ryan as the Oakridge Boys perform during a campaign rally at the Marion County Fairgrounds in Marion, Ohio on Sunday.
Ohio's Republican governor said Sunday that private polls show Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney beating President Barack Obama in the all-important battleground state of Ohio just as auto industry politics assume a dominant role in the closing days of the campaign.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) predicted outright that Romney would win Ohio on "Meet the Press" and, with it, the presidential election — a overall contest which Kasich said wouldn't be that close.
"Right now, I believe we're currently ahead. Internals show us currently ahead," he said, referring to the private polling candidates routinely conduct. "Honestly, I believe that Romney is going to carry Ohio."
The governor's show of confidence comes after a week in which Obama and Romney — along with their respective running mates — barnstormed the Buckeye State in hopes of securing the state's 18 electoral votes, which would greatly enhance either candidate's hopes of winning the presidential election.
A Cincinnati Enquirer/Ohio News poll released Sunday and conducted Oct. 18-23 showed the two candidates tied at 49 percent apiece among likely voters in the state. Two other public polls earlier in the week, by CNN/ORC and TIME magazine, showed Obama leading by a small margin.
Romney was set to spend Sunday touring the Buckeye State after canceling a series of stops in Virginia due to the impending Hurricane Sandy; Obama will make a quick trip to Youngstown on Monday before returning to Washington to monitor the hurricane. The president canceled planned stops in northern Virginia and Colorado in the first half of this week.
Both the president and Romney are battling to turn out their supporters to the polls and shake loose the few remaining undecided voters in a handful of swing states. The Romney campaign has claimed that momentum is on their side, a claim which the Obama campaign argues is a bluff.
The Romney campaign circulated on Sunday several newspaper endorsements — the Des Moines Register and the Cincinnati Enquirer among them — to argue that the Republican ticket had made inroads in crucial swing states. The Obama campaign responded in kind by sending reporters endorsement editorials from the Youngstown Vindicator and the Toledo Blade, both of which referenced the 2009 auto industry bailout as a point in Obama's favor.
The auto bailout — which Romney had opposed, memorably, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" — has assumed a central role in the closing days of the campaign, especially as the election plays out largely on a Midwestern, industrial and economically-battered playing field.
RELATED: Auto politics haunt Romney in NW Ohio
Kasich argued that the auto bailout hadn't actually boosted Ohio's economy as much as Obama would have the state's voters think.
"We are thrilled that we have a strong auto industry," he argued, "but it doesn't account for the growth of 112,000 jobs in our state."
Reuters, Getty Images
In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.
The Romney campaign also aired a new ad in Ohio touting an endorsement from the right-leaning Detroit News and iconic automan Lee Iacocca, while also making a controversial claim about productions of Jeeps in China.
"Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China," the ad says in reference to plans by the auto company to build a new production facility in China to sell vehicles in that country.
The ad is accurate but plays to misinformation that spread earlier this week — partly because Romney had previously voiced the claims — suggesting that Chrysler was planning to move production of all Jeeps to China. The automaker has strongly disputed those reports, though they could have an impact in battleground corners of Ohio like Toledo, a major hub for Jeep production in North America.
First Read: Romney's Ohio fortunes tied to softening bailout stance
The governors of two other battleground states — John Hickenlooper (D) of Colorado and Scott Walker (R) of Wisconsin — relied on more traditional fare to make the case for and against their candidates.
"What are those deductions and tax credits he's going to get rid of?" Hickenlooper asked of Romney's tax reform plan, seizing on the former Massachusetts governor's refusal to specify which loopholes and deductions he would eliminate to finance his proposed tax cuts.
And Walker, whose contentious collective bargaining reforms sparked a standoff with his state legislature and a recall election which he won, argued that Romney has a track record of working in a bipartisan manner.
"He's proven that he can do it in a state like Massachusetts," Walker said.
But neither Walker nor Hickenlooper seemed as confident as Kasich, who predicted that the fate of Ohio's electoral votes — and the election — would be known early on election night.
"I'm not sure the election's going to be as close as what everybody is talking about today," he said.
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The election is simple: If you liked the last 4 years vote for O'bama, if you want a chance for a change vote for Romney. Its not hard to figure what Obama will do in the next 4, it will be a repeat of the last 4. I for one don't want another 4 like we had. I saw my net worth go down $50,000 dollars and was forced into bankruptcy. I will take my chances with Romney at least he is a business man with some sense on handling our money. Obama will just tax and spend our country into bankrupcy.
Dick, Bush II was supposed to be a businessman too. Look where that took us. My decision is simple. At least I can see some positive change in the economy. As for bankruptcy you are not alone. My parents, who are retired, lost over 60% of their 401K under Bush II's watch and had to spend the rest on medication due to the donut hole Dubya made for the pharmaceutical companies advantage. I picked up the balance needed after they spent the rest of their 401K for medications at over $2K/month. Now with the AHCA the donut hole has been filled in that Mr. Rocket Scientist, Dubya, made for our senior citizens. Good job GOP! By the way where is Dubya now? He seems to be hiding from the fact he and his minions ruined our once great nation due to greed and stupidity not to mention vengeance.
We cannot afford another president who has Cheney and other Republicans on his advisory panel who were part of the failed Bush II administration that was wrought with lies, lining their pockets with our tax dollars that destroyed our middle class that I too am part of. Keep in mind the government is not a business as Dubya tried to pretend it was and that direction brought us down since elected officials all tried to make a profit including Abramoff the thief.
Intellect, you may not have approved of all or any of Bush's policies. But, he was not a failure as a president. Obama is indeed a failure for a president - no doubt.
As for the economy, did Bush cause pretty much the whole world's economy to fail? Not even he has that kind of power. Get real now. However, another President, even Clinton, could have done better in 4 years. No Doubt!
Romney/Ryan 2012
Ma, I beg to differ Bush II was a failure as a president. He failed us all when he lied about WMD's in Iraq and went on a vengeance power trip. No president in the history of this country has falsely led us into a war based on a blatant lie. History has recorded it as such even being written by American scholars. He exposed a working CIA agent because her husband came back with the truth instead of what the King and his new clothes wanted to hear.
He failed as a president when he exposed one of our people, Valerie Plame, who risk their life everyday to keep us safe. BUSH II was a total failure and this is why he has stayed out of sight and was not invited to the RNC party in Florida. That is proof he was a total embarrassment to his own party much less his family.
Mr. Obama, here is my 2 minute appeal to you…. This is the HOPE & CHANGE US Taxpayers DESPERATELY NEED and WANT…
1. Don’t distribute my wealth, distribute my work and moral ethics instead. If welfare recipients can afford cigarettes, booze, drugs and tattoos, they don’t need to be on welfare.
2. Random Drug test ALL welfare recipients, I have to pass a drug test in order to EARN a living and those taxes that FUND welfare.
3. Bridge Welfare offices to job search offices and REQUIRE welfare recipients to work 40/hrs week (mowing grasses for all govt owned blgs, cleaning & cooking for jails, and picking up crops for the American taxpayers. Welfare kids can be put in school gyms and other welfare moms can provide child care so that EVERYONE on welfare can volunteer 40 hours a week. Buy thousands of acres of land and make the generational foodstamp takers plant & work the fields, they can help feed the nation and feel proud..
4. Convert food stamps to FOOD VOUCHERS -- for basic foods like rice beans and bread ONLY. Give the lazy unproductive an incentive to find jobs
5. Mandatory Sterilization for welfare moms & dads getting WIC/Medicaid after the 2nd baby.
6. Eliminate Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) since it is riddled with fraud – the majority of those getting EITC lie and cheat to get it. Why should those not paying taxes be entitled to $7000 tax refunds?
7. Get rid of Section 8 (govt housing) – get army barracks instead - those residents should be required to go out and volunteer their time during the day and the beds should only be used at night. I have to work hard to pay for my housing.. don’t give anybody a FREE RIDE…
8. Save taxpayers BILLIONS… Merge INS (dept of homeland security) and IRS and save taxpayers BILLIONS of tax dollars, currently these 2 govt organization work against each other IRS rewards and entice illegal immigration (up to $3000 tax refunds – even if no income tax paid) , issuance of ITINS, and INS spends billions chasing, prosecuting and deporting illegals who turn right around come back into the country illegally.
9. Govt offices like WIC, Medicaid, and other charity must use E-verify and lead by example. vote romney
Rams are you talking eugenics? Here is your point, "5. Mandatory Sterilization for welfare moms & dads getting WIC/Medicaid after the 2nd baby." That was tried here and in Nazi Germany too. Have you lost your mind or are you of the mindset of those as infamous as Hitler and others who tried this failed experiment that today is labeled as genocide? Maybe you should pack up and leave to Europe or some other country as we do not condone eugenics or forced sterilization on our citizens.
More at point is AUTO-speak propaganda and has lost its infective virulence:
The Orwellian Big-Brother message that for a while seemed to crowd out all else from public discussion and consideration appears to now only resonates within the heads of true believers on the extreme right who are so immersed in what they say that they do not realize it now largely falls on deaf ears. The masses have become increasingly immune to what Dr. Karl Rove-nstien and Fox-Wolfman Roger Ailes have over the past several decades been able to bolt this monster of mentality onto the necks of members of those who become neo-right conservatives. When it worked in near epidemic effect, their feat of devising self-propagating auto-speak propaganda would have astounded Joseph Goebbels and filled him with envy.
When virulent and the afflicted, such as Rush, could no more than get it said it is true and the auto-said truth had the capacity to infect others with being like blinded-minded. And when there is a verbal sea of this stuff . . . as McLuhan said, “Fish know nothing of water.” And thus comes the flip side of Pogo’s dictum of considering that “we have met the enemy they is us.” The enemy is anyone and thing but us and us-ins and we-uns are most thoroughly surrounded by ENEMY NUMBER ONE: government of the people, by the people and for the people.
What is the root of Rove-Ailes auto-propaganda speak? Two people of vision who would have had nothing to do with their efforts: Marshall McLuhan (“The Medium is the Message”) and B.F. Skinner (“Science and Human Behavior” and “Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis”). Where Rove’s mentor, Ailes, might have run across them is not clear. But a read of Ailes book, “You are the Message,” suggests to those familiar with the work of McLuhan and Skinner that Ailes absorbed the gist of what they found from their differing points of study---language and psychology respectively.
Rove and Ailes have with the aid of growing numbers of inflicted, and some naturally fashioned that way, have been able to devise a means for generating verbal environments that produces what Eric Hoffer described in his 1951 book, “The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements.” And they also come to the Tea Party.
True, this has been done for centuries by cult leaders, but Rove and Ailes devised a school of propaganda that can do it by the election cycle. The split of right and left been well described by neurologist Antonio Damasio (“Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain”) and psycho linguist George Lakoff (“Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think”), but the means by which people arrive in the right-wing ward comes more surely in the blood infected by Rove and Ailes.
Fiat Says Jeep Output May Return to China as Demand Rises
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-21/fiat-says-china-may-build-all-jeep-models-as-suv-demand-climbs.html
The election is still two days away. Only two things are for sure. 1. If Romney wins, the democrats will cause riots. and be kicking and screaming for the next eight years!!! 2. If Obama wins, the republicans will continue to do their best with work and their families.
Ma, statistically it is Obama at 75% and Mittwit at 25%. The odds are not too good for Mittwit. If he pulls this one off he must be from the make believe planet the Mormons say god is from.
So for all these rants predicting that Big Mitt Romeny win....you were saying?
Right Wing Mega Bucks PACs spent over 1.3 BILLION against Obama,,,,Too bad they did not invest that in hiring a few people.
The avg Right Wing Group got under a 2% return on their political dollars this time.
(I am not referring to the actual candidates campaigns but to the outside groups)
What did you get? A loss of several Senate seats, A loss of likely 10 or so house Seats, and you did not buy the Presidency.
The people won.
FYI I am a White Male 1%-er who votes Democratic because I think everyone deserves a real chance, and that basic freedoms are critical. And if I have to pay a little more in ....so be it.