• Obama reminds Ohio voters: Romney opposed bailout

    Ohio AFL-CIO

    A flyer distributed by the AFL-CIO in Ohio.

    By NBC's Shawna Thomas

     

    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.’”

    A new CBS/New York Times poll shows Obama leading in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Romney is focused on wooing the swing state of Ohio which has been won by every Republican who ever became president. NBC's Ron Allen reports.

    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.”

  • AFL-CIO chief dismisses regrets in Wisconsin recall

    By Michael O'Brien, msnbc.com

     

    With the labor movement reeling from the result of Tuesday's recall election in Wisconsin, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sought to downplay the significance of Gov. Scott Walker's victory over a union-driven effort to unseat him. 

    Trumka, the leader of one of the nation's largest labor groups, dismissed the notion that unions might look back upon their unsuccessful campaign against Walker with regret.

    "We didn't decide on this recall. It was the workers in Wisconsin and the voters in Wisconsin who did," he said on a conference call with reporters. "Hell, I don't know if we'd do anything differently."

    First Thoughts: Walker wins and labor loses

    The AFL-CIO president highlighted instead two mitigating factors from Tuesday's recall, in which Walker beat out Democratic opponent Tom Barrett by 7 percentage points. 

    Trumka pointed to Walker's sizable advantage in spending between his own campaign and allies who flooded the airwaves in Wisconsin. Trumka also stressed the recall of a Republican state senator, which flipped control of that chamber from Republicans to Democrats. 

    "This isn't the crystal ball that predicts the future; this is a very unique circumstance," he said.

    The AFL-CIO also circulated a poll of union members who voted on Tuesday that reflected strong support for collective bargaining rights and generally stingy opposition to Walker. 

    Trumka noted — to his chagrin — that much of the debate during the closing weeks of the Walker-Barrett campaign had shifted away from the initial debate over organized labor.

    The whole effort to recall Walker was prompted by the governor's pursuit of a controversial state law stripping public sector workers of that privilege. 

    Walker emerges victorious in Wisconsin recall

    Wednesday's call was just the opening wave of postmortems associated with the recall, and the effort by groups with a stake in the race to spin (favorably or unfavorably) the outcome. 

    One of the biggest open questions for proponents of the recall will be whether President Barack Obama could have done more to aid the Barrett campaign. 

    "I think there's probably some mixed feelings," Trumka acknowledged of Obama's distance from the race, noting also that he wasn't interested in second-guessing the president's participation.