Jim Cole / AP

President Barack Obama waves to supporters as he arrives for a campaign event Saturday at Elm Street Middle School in Nashua, N.H.

NASHUA, N.H. –  During a New Hampshire campaign stop Saturday, President Barack Obama focused on Mitt Romney’s record as governor of the state that’s less than an hour south of here, Massachusetts:

"During Governor Romney’s campaign for governor down there, he promised the same thing he's promising now -- said he'd fight for jobs and middle-class families. But once he took office, he pushed through a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefitted 278 of the wealthiest families in the state, and then he raised taxes and fees on middle-class families to the tune of $750 million… Now, when he's asked about this, he says, no these weren’t taxes, these were fees."

The president continued: "There were higher fees for blind people who needed to get a certificate that they were blind. He raised fees to get a birth certificate, which would have been expensive for me."

The campaign hopes that attacking Romney’s Massachusetts record is something that could resonate with the residents of New Hampshire and push their four electoral votes in his direction.

Obama also downplayed Romney’s business record.

"Massachusetts, when he was governor, ranked 48th in small-business creation. And one of the two states that ranked lower was Louisiana that had gotten hit by Hurricane Katrina. So this is a guy who has a track record of saying one thing and doing something else," he said.

Interestingly, that was the only hurricane the president spoke about during his remarks, neglecting to acknowledge Hurricane Sandy, which is bearing down on the East Coast.

However, the White House pointed out that the president is monitoring the situation. He convened a conference call with FEMA and Department of Homeland Security representatives Saturday while aboard Air Force One for a briefing on storm preparations.

After Saturday's event the president was asked by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough about whether conflicting information about the situation surrounding the Benghazi attack was related to an intelligence community failure.

The president’s response:

"What my attitude on this is is if we find out there was a big breakdown and somebody didn’t do their job, they’ll be held accountable. Ultimately as Commander-in-Chief I am responsible and I don’t shy away from that responsibility."

The entire Morning Joe interview with the president will air on Monday morning on MSNBC.

Ohio AFL-CIO

A flyer distributed by the AFL-CIO in Ohio.

KENT, OH – At two stops in Ohio on Wednesday, President Barack Obama hammered away at Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney for his lack of support for the auto industry bailout and for investing in companies that moved jobs to China. Neither line of attack is new, but both continue to allow the president to paint Romney as an outsourcer and out of touch.

“He's been talking tough on China. He says he's going to take the fight to them. He's going to go after these cheaters,” Obama said. “I've got to admit that message … is better than what he's actually done about this thing. It sounds better than talking about all the years he spent profiting from companies that sent our jobs to China.”

Obama added: “When you hear this newfound outrage, when you see these ads he's running promising to get tough on China, it feels a lot like that fox saying, ‘You know, we need more secure chicken coops.’”

In Ohio, where about 12 percent of jobs are tied to the auto industry, the president likes to use this line: “When my opponent said we should just let Detroit go bankrupt ... that would have meant walking away from an industry that supports one in eight Ohio jobs.”

Almost always, the audience boos and the president follows up with, “Don’t boo. Vote.”  

The Ohio AFL-CIO, one of the state’s biggest unions, has made the auto bailout message one of their three main bullet points of support for Obama. A flyer distributed by the union states, “Obama took a principled stand to reinvest in the American auto industry, saving a million good jobs and millions more that depend on the auto industry.”

Obama even managed to turn a verbal gaffe during his appearance at Kent State University into a Romney dig when he said, “I want to see us export more jobs.” The president quickly corrected himself and then joked, “I’m sorry, I was channeling my opponent for a second.”

LAS VEGAS – President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that while he does not believe Egypt is an ally of the United States, he also doesn't consider the country an enemy.

“I think that we are going to have to see how they respond to this incident,” Obama said in an interview with Telemundo anchor José Diaz-Balart, host of Noticiero Telemundo. He was referring to Tuesday’s protests in Egypt, during which demonstrators, angered by a movie trailer parodying Prophet Muhammad, breached the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

The president continued: "Certainly in this situation, what we're going to expect is that (the Egyptian government is) responsive to our insistence that our embassy is protected, our personnel is protected, and if they take actions that they’re not taking those responsibilities, as all countries do where we have embassies, I think that’s going to be a real big problem.”

Obama’s strong words could mark a dramatic shift in the U.S.’s relationship with Egypt, which has been consistently pro-American since the late president Anwar Sadat. The country has maintained a peace accord with Israel since the 1979 Camp David Accords and since 1982 has received $1.3 billion in military and development aid from the U.S, according to the State Department.

How the recent election of President Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, will – or already has – affected the relationship between the two countries is still unclear. Morsi was Egypt’s first-ever democratically-elected president.

In the Telemundo interview Wednesday night, Obama also discussed the ambush on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, calling the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya "heartbreaking" and repeated his call to bring those responsible to justice.

But when asked by Diaz-Balart whether it was time to "reconsider foreign aid" to Egypt and Libya, Obama said the U.S. “doesn't have an option of withdrawing from the world ... we're the one indispensable nation."

"Libya ... is a government that is very friendly towards us,” Obama continued. “The vast majority of Libyans welcomed the United States' involvement. They understand that it's because of us that they got rid of a dictator who had crushed their spirits for 40 years."

Moammar Gadhafi, who had ruled the country since 1969, was overthrown in August 2011 during the Libyan Civil War triggered by the Arab Spring revolutions.

Earlier Wednesday, Libyan leader Mohammed Magarief took to the airwaves to condemn the killings and to apologize to the U.S.

Slideshow: U.S. posts attacked in Libya and Egypt

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The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed after protesters angry over a film that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad stormed the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.

Launch slideshow

President Obama expressed confidence that the Libyan government would help the U.S. in finding those who were responsible for yesterday's violence: "Our hope is to be able to capture them ... but we're going to have to obviously cooperate with the Libyan government. And you know, I have confidence that we will stay on this relentlessly, because Chris Stevens, he's somebody who actually advised me and Secretary Clinton during the original Libyan uprising. He was somebody who Libyans recognized as being on the side of the people. And we're going get help. We're going to get cooperation on this."

Responding to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s statements that Obama’s initial response was disgraceful, Obama said: “As president, my obligation is to focus on security for our people, making sure that we gather all the facts, making sure that we're advancing American interests. And not having ideological arguments on a day when we are mourning the loss of outstanding folks who have served our country very well.”

SIOUX CITY, Iowa – President Barack Obama began his "Road to Charlotte" tour Saturday in Iowa, the state that started it all back in 2008.

While this was the formal start of the push to highlight his upcoming speech Thursday at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., the president has been stumping in Iowa pretty regularly this year. Saturday’s visit marked his seventh trip to the Hawkeye state. While Iowa only has six electoral votes, the campaign is determined to prove that the president can once again win over a state that has been politically leaning red since Obama was elected.

In Urbandale, outside of the capital city of Des Moines, the president began to renew his case with his version of a "recap" of this past week's Republican National Convention in Tampa.

"Everything is bad, it’s Obama’s fault and Governor Romney is the only one who knows the secret to creating jobs and growing the economy," the president said sarcastically. "That was the pitch. There was a lot of talk about hard truths and bold choices, but nobody ever actually bothered to tell you what they were."

And then he pledged to give the answers he claimed the Republicans glossed over.

"This Thursday night, I will offer you what I believe is a better path forward, a path that grows this economy, creates more good jobs, strengthens the middle class. And the good news is you get to choose which path we take. We can take their path or we can take the path that I'm going to present."

His speeches in both Urbandale and Sioux City were energetic with new, pointed criticisms of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Harkening back again to Romney's speech in Tampa, the president reminded the crowd that Romney didn’t mention the troops serving in Afghanistan.

"Governor Romney had nothing to say about Afghanistan last week, let alone offer a plan for the 33,000 troops who will have come home from the war by the end of this month. He said ending the war in Iraq was 'tragic.' I said we’d end that war -- and we did."

Larry Downing / Reuters

President Barack Obama speaks to thousands of supporters Saturday at a campaign event at the Living History Farms in Urbandale, Iowa.

The Obama campaign theme emblazoned on banners at events is "Forward," symbolizing the president's repeated criticisms that Romney's plans will take the country "backwards." But the president newly riffed on this Saturday when he said of the Republican convention, "What they offered over those three days was more often than not an agenda that was better suited for the last century. It was a rerun. We’d seen it before. You might as well have watched it on a black-and-white TV."

But missing from the pair of fiery speeches in Iowa were new ideas from the president. He presented the plans he's been pushing throughout the year. If he has new ideas, he's clearly saving them for Thursday.

Shawna Thomas / NBC News

A sign using the Sioux City, Iowa, airport code Saturday gives President Barack Obama a derogatory greeting on the side of a hangar.

His remarks Saturday were a reworked mash-up that allowed him to choose applause lines that have worked well since he officially took to the trail in May. 

But waiting for the president when he landed was a sign that he still has a ways to go to win over Iowa again, literally. Spread across a hangar at the airport where Air Force One landed was a handmade sign proclaiming "Obama welcome to SUX and We Did Build This" ("welcome to" was in small letters; to be fair, SUX is the airport code for Sioux City, but the sign was meant to be derogatory).

The president continues his tour through Colorado, Ohio, Virginia and Louisiana before heading to Charlotte to give one of the most important speeches of his political career.

Tony Gutierrez / AP

President Barack Obama speaks to troops and military families Friday at the 1st Aviation Support Battalion Hangar at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.

Fort Bliss, Texas – On the second anniversary of the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq, President Barack Obama returned to the same Army base he visited in 2010 to announce the mission’s end. The message from the president to the troops Friday:

“When you take off that uniform, we are going to help you fully participate in our economy.  Every single one of you has defended the American dream for the rest of us and every single one of you deserves the chance to live the American dream for yourselves.”

As a part of the aid, the president explained that he signed a new executive order designed to give troops, veterans and military families better access to mental health care.

But while the visit was billed as an “official” White House event, meaning the president wasn’t technically in campaign mode, it was hard not to hear campaign themes and fighting words in the president’s speech. 

Speaking about his 2008 campaign promises to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said, “Ending these wars is letting us do something else: restore American leadership. If you hear anyone trying to say that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, don't you believe it, because here's the truth: our alliances have never been stronger.”

While that felt like a veiled swipe at GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the president’s tough talk toward Congress was not hidden at all. He told the audience of 5000 troops and civilians that “some folks” were trying to scare them when talking about the looming defense cuts that were a result of a congressional deal to raise the debt ceiling last year:

“Understand, nobody wants these cuts … There's no reason those cuts should happen, because folks in Congress ought to come together and agree on a responsible plan that reduces the deficit and keeps our military strong. That's what needs to happen,” the president said forcefully.

The backdrop of men and women in fatigues was all the more prominent Friday in the face of Romney omitting any mention of troops serving in Afghanistan during his nomination acceptance speech Thursday night.

One Obama campaign official said, “In an almost 45-minute speech, Romney didn’t find a moment to mention our troops in Afghanistan or how we’re providing for veterans when they return home.”

The president also vigorously emphasized the promises he believed he has kept during his presidency (pulling all combat troops out of Iraq last year, “taking the fight to al Qaida,” trying to help returning veterans) with a line he repeated three times, “I meant what I said.” 

Obama’s “Road to Charlotte” campaign swing officially begins Saturday with two stops in Iowa followed by visits to Colorado, Ohio and Virginia.  He will also tour Hurricane Isaac damage in Louisiana on Monday afternoon.

CHICAGO, Ill. -- Making his first public remarks since Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan as his running mate, President Barack Obama gave a double-edged welcome to the new Republican vice presidential nominee, indicating how he seeks to define the new ticket for the remainder of the election. 

Speaking to a crowd of young supporters at the Bridgeport Art Center here, Obama said Mitt Romney’s theories of “top-down economics” were apparent in his vice presidential pick of Ryan, the architect of a controversial deficit-reduction budget proposal that includes restructuring Medicare into a "premium support" or voucher system.

“Just yesterday morning, my opponent chose his running mate – the ideological leader of the Republicans in Congress,” he said, seeking to fuse Ryan’s economic views – mostly admired in conservative circles but also viewed by some as radical – with Romney’s.

“My opponent and Congressman Ryan and their allies in Congress, they all believe that if we just get rid of more regulations on big corporations and we give more tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, it will lead to jobs and prosperity for everybody else. That’s what they’re proposing. That’s where they’ll take us if they win,” he said. 

Tying Ryan's provocative budget proposals to former Massachusetts Gov. Romney had already been a popular line of attack for the Obama campaign, but the choice of Ryan as a running mate means that tactic will likely become even more prevalent in coming months.

David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, summed up the choice to pick Ryan on NBC's Meet the Press: "I think that it clarifies the choice for the American people. And I think it clarifies the choice in a way that is going to be helpful."

The crowd started to boo at the first mention of Ryan but Obama urged them to hold their jeers, stressing that his disagreements with the Republican vice presidential hopeful are policy-based, not personal.

“I want to congratulate Congressman Ryan,” Obama said. “I know him. I welcome him to the race. Congressman Ryan is a decent man; he is a family man.” 

Obama’s compliments, however, contained an implicit criticism. The president called Ryan “an articulate spokesman for Governor Romney’s vision. But it’s a vision that I fundamentally disagree with.”

NBC’s Shawna Thomas contributed to this report. Follow her on Twitter.

President Barack Obama wasn't addressing only seniors when he attacked Mitt Romney’s stance on Medicare on Thursday in Florida; he was also focusing on those voters who, he warned, would face a radically different Medicare system if Republican plans were imposed.

At his first event during a two-day trip to Florida, a state where seniors make up 17.3 percent of the population, Obama took aim at Republican proposals to reform Medicare. “Medicare” is a buzzword sure to perk up the ears of the state's retired population, which leans on the program for medical care.

"He plans to turn Medicare into a voucher program. So if that voucher isn't worth enough to buy the health insurance that's on the market, you're out of luck. You're on your own," the president said of Romney’s position. "One independent non-partisan study found that seniors would have to pay nearly $6,400 more for Medicare than they do today."

That particular line of attack is directed at middle-aged voters who will be eligible for Medicare in the next couple of decades. Obama also tied Medicare’s solvency to the current debate over the future of the Bush-era tax cuts.

"It's wrong to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare just so millionaires and billionaires can pay less in taxes," he said. "That's not the way to reduce the deficit."

The focus on Medicare is intentional; Democrats enjoyed a degree of political traction when they first targeted the 2011 budget written by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin. In May, the Obama campaign released a web video that claimed Romney would end Medicare in its current form and that a typical 65-year-old woman could be left “with nothing but a voucher to buy insurance coverage, which means $6,350 extra per year for a similar plan.”

That attack was premised on Romney's endorsement of the "Path to Prosperity" authored by Ryan -- who is believed to be on Romney’s shortlist for running mate -- for its proposed changes to Medicare.

At the time, Politifact debunked the claims by the Obama campaign, saying they were based only on Ryan's 2011 proposal, and not the subsequent plan he coauthored with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, one that offers seniors a more traditional Medicare option. And the non-partisan study the president mentioned was the Congressional Budget Office report from April of 2011, which analyzed Ryan’s original budget proposal. 

But the president’s remarks on Medicare do highlight the lack of specifics in Romney’s plan. As long as the presumptive GOP nominee provides only an outline of what he would do to keep the costs of Medicare under control, Obama can continue to campaign on the idea that seniors might very well pay more in the future under a President Romney.

 “Bottom line: There is a clear choice in this election for seniors between President Obama who has been a strong advocate for strengthening Medicare, and Mitt Romney who supports a voucher system that could increase costs," said Obama campaign spokesperson Ben Finkenbinder.

In a statement, Lanhee Chen, Romney's campaign policy director, disagreed, saying that Romney has "a plan to preserve Medicare for today's seniors while strengthening it for future generations." 

Obama, Chen said, would take "hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare to spend on Obamacare and will leave seniors with fewer choices."

Expect the Obama to continue hitting Romney on Medicare and taxes later Thursday and Friday as he wraps up his trip to Florida with appearances in West Palm Beach, Fort Myers and Orlando.

GLENN ALLEN, VA -- In a soaking wet blue shirt, President Barack Obama delivered almost his entire stump speech Saturday to an enthusiastic audience that had waited through a downpour to see him speak in a town outside of Richmond.

The president apologized early in the speech for messing up the hairdos of women in the audience.

“We’re going to have to treat everybody for a little salon, hair visit after this,” he joked as the rain fell.

What he didn’t apologize for was continuing to attack Republican candidate Mitt Romney on the subject of his tenure at Bain Capital and its involvement with companies that may have encouraged outsourcing.

“Mr. Romney’s got a different idea. He invested in companies that have been called pioneers in outsourcing. I don’t want a pioneer in outsourcing. I want some insourcing,” the president said to cheers. 

Jason Reed / Reuters

President Barack Obama delivers his speech Saturday during a downpour at a campaign rally in Glen Allen, Va.

On Saturday the Obama campaign released an ad titled “Firms”  that will air in nine swing states. The ad superimposes newspaper article quotes such as this one from the Los Angeles Times: “In business, Mitt Romney’s firms shipped jobs to Mexico and China” over audio of Romney singing “America the Beautiful.”

The Romney campaign and the candidate himself have repeatedly pushed back at the Obama campaign’s claims that Romney deserves blame for any jobs that were moved overseas as the result of actions of the private equity firm he used to run.   

Romney spokesperson Ryan Williams said in response to the president’s speech, “Americans are tired of the same old broken promises and dishonest attacks. They want a leader like Mitt Romney who keeps his word and is more focused on fixing the economy than telling stories."

PhotoBlog: Stumping in the rain

And really, the president’s statement and the new advertisement are just more rocks thrown in the back and forth between the two presidential campaigns over Mr. Romney’s business background.

Jason Reed / Reuters

President Barack Obama greets rain-soaked supporters Saturday during a campaign rally in Glen Allen, Va.

During an interview with NBC News Friday, Mr. Romney said the president needs to “rein in” his campaign and talk about “real issues.”  And in an interview with ABC News, Romney said, “He [Obama] sure as heck ought to say that he's sorry for the kinds of attacks that are coming from his team.” An Obama campaign staffer earlier said that if Romney knowingly misrepresented his position at Bain Capital on Securities and Exchange Commission filings, that might be a “felony.”

Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki’s response to the request for an apology: “Mitt Romney is the same candidate who just a few months ago was questioning whether the President understood America, understood freedom, and spent a lot of time -- and a lot of time on his campaign still to date -- attacking him.”

In other words, don’t hold your breath on that apology-thing, Mitt Romney.

Obama finishes his two-day tour of Virginia with an event in the northern part of the state in  a town called Clinton. Friday while rallying supporters in Virginia Beach, the president alluded to the mathematical importance of the state to get to 270 electoral votes. "If and when we get Virginia. We will win this election,” he said.

As First Read pointed out Friday:

Virginia -- with its 13 electoral votes -- is so important for Obama: A win there, plus in Colorado, enables him to surpass 270 electoral votes without winning Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and Nevada. But a loss there forces the president to MUST win either: 1) Florida; 2) Ohio; or 3) both of Iowa and Nevada to get to 270. And that’s assuming, of course, that Obama holds on to all the states John Kerry won in ’04. 

The president has also been using this series of campaign speeches to highlight the need to extend the Bush-era tax cuts that are supposed to sunset at the end of the year for those who make $250,000 or less as well as call for an end to that tax cut for those who make over that amount of money.

“The Republicans disagree with me on this. Mr. Romney disagrees with me on this. And my attitude is, well, that's fine, but let’s not hold middle-class folks hostage. The top 2 percent, those tax cuts, that will be settled in the next election,” the president said Friday.

Next week the president is expected to travel to Ohio and Texas for more campaign events.