HE’LL PASS: Mitt Romney winds up for a pass as he crosses paths with Rep. Paul Ryan and his family at the airport in Akron, Ohio, yesterday. (
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CANTON, Ohio — A fired-up Mitt Romney delivered an economic address yesterday that accused President Obama of trying to “demonize” him — as the Obama campaign mocked Romney as being stuck in the 1950s.
“President Obama promised to bring us together, but at every turn, he has sought to divide and demonize,” Romney said while laying out his economic plan in Iowa. Romney then slammed Obama for the “misguided policies” that slowed the recovery.
Romney’s complaints come after Obama spent several days ridiculing the candidate for having “Romnesia” and forgetting his earlier positions. The move followed efforts by Obama’s campaign to paint Romney as a job outsourcer.
Obama, taking a break from the campaign trail after a whirlwind multi-state tour, told Philadelphia radio host Michael Smerconish he’d do almost anything to reach a debt deal to avoid the fiscal cliff.
“I’ll wash John Boehner’s car. I’ll walk Mitch McConnell’s dog,” he said of the two Republican leaders on Capitol Hill.
Vice President Joe Biden, campaigning in Wisconsin — where a new poll showed the race dead even — continued an effort by the Obama camp to paint Romney as dated and out of touch.
He said Romney was “caught up in ‘Mad Men’ or something,” Biden told a crowd. “It’s straight out of the ’50s,” he added, although the show follows a Madison Avenue ad agency in the 1960s.
Romney also dismissed a new report showing the economy grew at 2 percent in the third quarter — far from the 4.3 percent rate he said Obama promised would come from all his stimulus spending.
“Slow economic growth means slow job growth and declining take-home pay,” Romney said. “That’s what four years of President Obama’s policies have produced.”
The volley of one-liners came as a menacing storm, Hurricane Sandy, moved up the coast and threatened to wreak havoc with campaign schedules and early voting as tracks showed it could ravage the East Coast and continue into battleground Ohio.
Romney canceled a planned trip to coastal southern Virginia, and Obama met with his emergency-response staff.
Obama leads in three separate surveys in battleground Ohio — 50-46 in a CNN poll, 49-47 in an ARG poll, and 46-44 in a Purple Strategies poll.
Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who is leading Romney’s effort in the state, told NBC: “If we don’t win Ohio, it’s tough to see us winning the election nationally. It’s possible, but it’s very difficult.”
Meanwhile, absentee ballots meant for military members serving in Afghanistan may have burned when a plane carrying mail crashed at an air base there.
Officials from the Federal Voting Assistance Program said that some 4,700 pounds of mail heading to the troops was destroyed in a crash at Shindad Air Base.
There was no word on casualties, but officials said that the ballots should be resent to the base.