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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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When voting remember...Benghazi.
Is this the leadership the AMERICAN people want or deserve.
Romney/Ryan 2012
Will it ever end...deep sigh....Go home Romney, your no President! You can't even set a precedent!
It's spelled you're not your, genius.
Thank you, and you are correct about he word being You're instead of your. However, if all you can say is that then you what makes you a genius...hmmm. Good at English, but have no idea what critical thinking is or are you just another republican bully who would like to go back to the 1950's or further back? Good bye to the good ole Republicans, they turned into the likes of the KKK, and people are tired of the bullying. Vote them out of Congress, because they have stalled this country far worse than OBAMA!
what do you expect from sponges? as long as they can make their mark on the back of the welfare check they are happy.
Rcp Averages as of 10/28/2012
Colorado(9) - Tie
Florida(29) - Romney +1.8
Iowa(6) - Obama +2.3
Michigan(16) - Obama +4.0
Nevada(6) - Obama +2.6
New Hampshire(4) - Obama +1.4
North Carolina(15) - Romney +3.8
Ohio(18) - Obama +2.3
Pennsilvania(20) - Obama +4.7
Virginia(13) - Tie
Wisconsin(10) - Obama +2.3
Give Romney the states that are tied and those where he is ahead and Obama wins:
Obama 281
Romney 257
From his tone - does he know something we do not? Is he telling us, in that coded language, that the fix is on?
It's a code for "lipstick on a pig".
Didn't PA govenor also predict Romney would win that state as well... despite Romney trailing by 5-6 points?
Of course the Republican govenors are going to say their guy is going to win. Thats just how it works, and there is no reason for this to be front page news. I mean thats like saying "BREAKING NEWS: MIT ROMNEY THINKS HES GOING TO WIN". Of course each side is going to declare themselves ahead becuase it helps fire up the base.
Its highly unlikely that the mountain of public polls (even right leaning ones like Rasmussen) are all wrong and have all been wrong for months now. Obama has a fragil 2-3 point lead in Ohio right now, and we'll have to see how it plays out over the next week... but hes not losing in the state.
Ya but Kasich is the one that can sink Romney for sure!!!!
9-11 has turned into a nightmare once again. Al Qaida has chosen this day on the calendar for regular attacks on the "Great Satan", aka the United States of America. But this year is particularly troublesome because not only did Americans die in the attacks, but this year our own government decided to lie about it.
2012 being an election year, nothing can be allowed to break the campaigning President from his re-election talking point that Al Qaida has been vanquished into the dark recesses of history. Barak Obama has spent much of the year boasting about his success in defeating Al Qaida and killing their leader, Osama Bid Laden.
If this vanquished foe can reach from their grave on the anniversary of 9-11 and kill an American Ambassador, then the campaign rhetoric about how he, Barack Obama, has kept us safe is blown to bits.
So instead of the truth we have been spoon-fed a first class cover-up. First phase of the cover-up was to mislead America. Rather than call the attack terrorism, we were given a steady stream of official statements intended to make us believe the attack in Benghazi, Libya was merely a demonstration about a YouTube video gone wrong.
Here are some examples of the Obama Administration's cover-up lies.
Starting at the top on September 12th Barack Obama told us this: "Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts...No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for."
Read Obama's statement closely and make up your own mind. We don't think he called the attack terrorism, but we publish the whole paragraph so you can make your own determination.
But to put his statement into context, we share some administration comments that came after the September 12th statement.
The next day, September 13th, Obama's spokesman Jay Carney said this: "I think it's important to note with regards to that protest that there are protests taking place in different countries across the world that are responding to the movie that has circulated on the Internet. As Secretary Clinton said today, the United States government had nothing to do with this movie. We reject its message and its contents. We find it disgusting and reprehensible."
It isn't the killing of our Ambassador Carney is calling reprehensible, it is this YouTube video.
Then on September 14th Hillary Clinton said this: We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with." Again the focus is on the video.
Later that day Carney said at a news briefing: "I have seen that report, and the story is absolutely wrong. We were not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent. That report is false."
But the most damning evidence of a cover-up is when Susan Rice, America's Ambassador to the UN made the rounds of the major Sunday shows saying: "Based on the best information we have to date ... it began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo, where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy sparked by this hateful video.... We do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned."
Only the Obama Administration saw it this way. We had more honesty from Mohamed Yusuf al-Magariaf, president of Libya's General National Congress. He told us just the opposite on September 16th: "The way these perpetrators acted and moved, and their choosing the specific date for this so-called demonstration, this leaves us with no doubt that this was preplanned, predetermined."
You get the picture. As late as September 25th, Barack Obama was not willing to call the Benghazi attack terrorism, pure and simple, instead he was still saying: "We are still doing an investigation."
Obama definitely doesn't want to be pinned down, and is currently trying to re-write history, but we think any dispassionate review of the statements and the timeline shows Obama and his people are engaged in a cover-up. Why? Obama is desperate to retain power and the presidency.
Getting desperate, are we?
You can always tell who watches Fox News hourly.
You guys sound as up on foreign policy as Mitt is. Maybe you should run for office, too.
There were a dozen foreign terrorist attacks under the Bush Administration plus 9/11. In marked contrast, there's been ONE terrorist attack under the Obama Administration.
Obama assassinated Bin Laden and the world has obviously been a much safer place for American interests since he moved into the White House.
.... YOU WANT TO BLAME OBAMA FOR WHAT HAPPENED IN THE MIDDLE EAST? Not to discount the American loss of those four men killed ... May God bless them and their families ....
THIS IS WHAT BUSH DID or DIDN'T DO ON AMERICAN SOIL ....
What Bush Knew Before Sept.11
"We were trying to figure out what they (al Qaeda) would do. We never had specifics about time, place, MO (method of operation)."
U.S. intelligence official, commenting anonymously.
President Bush was told in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack U.S. passenger planes - information which prompted the administration to issue an alert to federal agencies - but not the American public.
CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin says the warning was in a document called the President's Daily Brief, which is considered to be the single most important document that the U.S. intelligence community turns out. The document did not, however, mention the possibility of planes being flown
into buildings.
An agent in the FBI's Arizona office did, however, speculate about that, writing in his case notes about Zacarias Moussaoui that Moussaoui seemed like the type of person who was capable of flying an aircraft into the World Trade Center.
It was the observation of an agent taking notes as he thought about his case - an observation whose significance simply did not register at the time.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer says that while President Bush was told last summer that bin Laden's al Qaeda network might hijack planes, he did not receive information suggesting that airplanes might be used as suicide bombs, as they were on Sept. 11.
Fleischer emphasizes that "until the attack took place, I think it's fair to say that no one envisioned that as a possibility."
The revelation about the president's security briefing comes as House and Senate Intelligence Committee investigators prepare for public hearings beginning next month on whether an intelligence community which spends $30 billion a year should have been able to provide a more specific warning in advance of Sept. 11.
The New York Times reports that an FBI agent in Arizona warned his superiors last summer that bin Laden might be sending students to U.S. flight schools.
Investigators have since Sept. 11 suspected bin Laden's al Qaeda network of masterminding the terror attacks on America, which killed more than 3,000 people.
Republicans don't want to see the bigger picture .... the middle east has been at war since forever ... the attacks on the embassy happened in the middle east .... Bush was for-warned too ... and did nothing and they attacked us AMERICAN SOIL .... HUGE DIFFERENCE .....
MIDDLE EAST - 4 KILLED
AMERICAN SOIL - 3000 KILLED .... YES REPUBLICANS EXPLAIN THAT ONE .....
MAY GOD BLESS AMERICA .... AND AMERICA VOTE FOR OBAMA 2012
Wendell -
Wrong! There was Fort Hood, numerous failed attempts, and other acts against our service personnel in Afghanistan. There were also terrorist attacks against the embassy and Consulate this year alone in Libya.
Have you been living under a rock to not know this?
The political relationship between private economy, public sector and taxpayer is for many Americans terrifying. America must be changed back, from the horrors Obama has inflicted on America. I expect a landslide.
If Mitt does win Ohio and Colorado it because they will cheat, steal and lie to win votes. The voter machines are probably rigged if Koch brothers has anything to do with it. Also, for all of you educationally deprived women who will vote for a party that doesn't believe you have the intelligence to make decision about you bodies, you deserve what you get. No Rights.
You already have the excuses ready, don't you?
IF, and that's a big IF, Romney get's into the White House it won't be a Republican president we have, it will be a MORMON president. This liar wrapped in onion layers will peel off his last layer to show that he is a card carrying garment wearing Mormon beyond all else.
If this happens we are ALL in trouble....all of us.
Your joking right?
We have a Muslim president right now and your OK with that?
Jeffrey, he's not only Muslim but also a Rastafarian, a Buddhist and a Tarot card reader. Tell everyone!
Big deal what religion either candidate is. Religion is not a litmus test, we are free to believe or not to believe in this country. There isn't any specific religion for this country, and religion needs to stay out of politics. I'm really tired, and sick of talk of who is what religion. We are a melting pot of a country with many different religions....let's stop with the religion B.S.
I got news for you; this is something the Mormon church has wanted for YEARS. Too bad you know nothing about the churches adgenda. As an x-Mormon who was nearly a bishop before I got sick of the BS ignore his religion at your own risk. It will be too late when the Republicans discover he's a snake in the grass and the Churchs' man and not theirs
Romney's election would set back the country 50 years...at least.
Psssst, Gov. Kasich.... And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
A black, Christian Minister who is also a Marine has written an article on voting - please read this - Exodus Now.
Kasich is faking it just like Mitt is about their purported surge and how well they're doing in an effort to make Democrats fearful. We are not falling for the okie-doke and people aren't as stupid as Kashich and Mitt think. I hope his and MItt's and the rest of the racist Republicans who have spent gazillions to suppress the vote, lie about policies that don't even jibe -- have to swallow the big lump called loss on November 6th. This is the most despicable, shameful, racist election I've seen in my lifetime and it is downright scary that this is more than a fight for the White House with the hope of improving the economy, this is about rich white men controlling this country, and it is called an oligarchy. We are not fooled by Mitt and Kashich, I pray, will be voted out of office when he comes up for election. He's already got a taste of it when his union bill was repealed.
A chief Romney surrogate predicts he'll win Ohio.. Gee, it must be true then! (sarcasm intended) This is clearly an attempt to keep supporters from being discouraged from the real numbers.
The averages of all polls has Obama up by about three points among likely voters. And by all independent accounts, Obama has a superior ground organization in Ohio which is already turning out much more than likely voters, a dynamic that favors the president.
Ohio is clearly shaping up to be Obama's firewall. And without Ohio, Romney will lose.
Wow! Can you believe it, a republican guvnor predicts a republican win? I wonder who the State leading democrat leader predicts will win? Sarcasm duly noted-right?
Hopefully someone will turn off the sunshine pump before Kasich contracts colon cancer.
Republicans and maybe the American public, I think have the idea that things cant get any worse than having Obama in office. He might not have have led up to the expectations but dont be fooled into thinking ANY change is better. Romney is from the same mold as all of our other Republican war mongers. He is going to get us into WWIII and there will be NO winners in that one.
Ohio isn't a lock for the Leftist Obama.
The Governor is Republican the Majority of the Congressman 13 of 18 are Republican one Senator is Republican so I say Obama is a Bullsh!tter.
That Ohio newspaper poll is old. I don't know why people like the governor are talking about a poll that doesn't reflect the third debate. There's newer polling information available.
I know why they are talking about it. It's called "lipstick on a pig".
Wendell -
The polls newer than that show Obama losing by even more. Are you sure you want to see them?
Goes to show you that all the working people want a new leader... not one that can't create jobs or anything else as we can see. Lets all vote Romney--Ryan and try to get out the Obama mess.
So this article and apparently MTP both chose to highlight the poll showing a tie, even though two polls came out this week, thus are more current, showing +4 and +5 for Obama. The ongoing media narrative of Mitt's momentum is false.
I am assuming you are going for the NBC polls, because all of the others show Romney in the lead...
This Bull Sh*&^%ter in the words of the President.
You should follow Cheney's advise: "Go F*** Yourself".
Suuuure they do.......Keep telling your self that.
We will not forget come Nov. 6th!
Vote Obama/Biden 2012!
Obama will lose because:
1. He ran a deceptive campaign derived by lies and character assassination.
2. Debate number one the American People figured out Obama was a liar when Mitt smoked him in the debate.
3. Obama has no new ideas to fix the economy. His last 4 years were failure and everybody knows it.
4. He made campaign promises he did not keep (lied) including poor unemployment, crossing the aisle to bring government back together, doubled the deficit versus cutting it in half. Food stamps from 32 million to 47 million. He made poor people poorer.
5. Handling of Libya. He did nothing to help keep those 4 heros alive. Then, he lied immediately about it being about protests due to a film. Facts are in and it was peaceful prior to the attack. he knew this because they have video cameras of the entire compound inside and out.
The American people will never forgive Obama for failing to protect those brave Americans. They will never forgive him for not being involved in the security the 6 months prior to the attacks.
Dream on, Gene.. And have your crying towel ready to go a week from Tuesday when Mittens gets sent into forced retirement.
Obama will lose and it won.t even be close. I've been all over the country travelling for my job and I see a totally different voter public this time. People are tired of the dems lying ...a President that won't take the blame for anything that goes wrong...and a lot has gone wrong. Obama is busy golfing or showing up on letterman..he doesn't seem interested in the workings of our government. Even his fellow dems won't vote for his budgets so you know the next 4 years would be the same.
Keep dreaming.
4 out of 5 people interviewed at an Obama rally stated they get their news from Rachel Maddow...their trusted source...
Nuf said....own it
4.5 of the 5.8 interviewed by the Hooter's Fox Network say they'll be voting for Waldo Palin and Trump..