Obama: 'Election presents a choice' on the economy

Speaking to voters nationwide from the pivotal battleground of Ohio, President Barack Obama mounted a full-throated defense of his record on the economy on Thursday and warned that Mitt Romney would re-enact George W. Bush's policies.

"Though we will have many differences over the course of this campaign, there is one place where I stand in complete agreement with my opponent: This election is about our economic future," Obama said.

"This election presents a choice between two fundamentally different visions on how to create strong, sustained growth, how to pay down our long-term debt," and how to generate good middle-class jobs, the president said. "This is not another trivial Washington argument."

Obama said his approach has helped the private sector generate more jobs in the past two years than in the seven years before the global economic meltdown.

"Not only are we digging out of a hole that is 9 million jobs deep, we're digging out from an entire decade," he said.

Obama also poked fun at his recent observation that, compared to the cash-strapped public sector, "the private sector is doing fine."

"So, Ohio, over the next five months this election will take many twists and many turns. Polls will go up and polls will go down. There will be no shortage of gaffes and controversies," he said. "I made my own unique contribution to that process. ... It wasn't the first time, it won't be the last."

The embattled president said the nation's economic ills had festered long before he took office, saying the crisis of 2007-2008 was "more than a decade in the making."

"What is holding us back is not a lack of big ideas," he said. "What's holding us back is a stalemate in Washington between two fundamentally different views of which direction America should take. This election is your chance to break that stalemate."

"Of course the economy isn't where it needs to be," he said behind a a lectern emblazoned with his campaign slogan, "Forward," in front of eight American flags at a community college in Cleveland.

Mitt Romney, speaking on the other side of the state, took aim at Obama's remarks, predicting that the president "is going to be a person of eloquence" and marshal "all sorts of excuses."

"But don't forget, he's been president for 3? years, and talk is cheap. Actions speak very loud," the former Massachusetts governor said, under a banner that read "Putting Jobs First." "What he says and what he does are not always the exact same thing."Before Obama left Washington, the Department of Labor released official data showing that weekly unemployment benefit applications rose 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 386,000?the latest sign of anemic hiring and sluggish growth.

And the Gallup polling organization released a survey showing that more than two-thirds of Americans?including half of Republicans?still pin the country's economic ills on former President George W. Bush.

What one might call the blame gap has narrowed considerably: When Gallup first asked Americans in July 2009 whom they faulted for the poor economy, 80 percent laid a great deal or a moderate amount of blame on Bush, and only 32 percent held Obama responsible.

The current numbers show 68 percent of the public blames the former president while 52 percent say Obama deserves the criticism. (The numbers total more than 100 percent because the question was not "which one do you blame more," but how much blame each president deserves individually.)

And on Wednesday, an ABC News/ Washington Post poll showed that only 38 percent of independent swing voters viewed Obama's economic plans favorably, with a majority (54 percent) disapproving. But independent voters judge Romney's economic ideas just as harshly: 47 percent gave his economic approach an unfavorable rating, with just 35 percent finding it favorable.

The Democratic president has crisscrossed the country in recent months pleading for patience from voters still struggling in the anemic recovery and grappling with a stubbornly high unemployment rate above 8 percent. In his speeches, Obama makes a point of charging Bush and Republicans in general with the 2007-2008 meltdown and warns that Mitt Romney's economic program resembles the Bush approach "on steroids."

Among independents, who often play a role in deciding elections, 51 percent assign Obama a great deal or a moderate amount of blame, while 47 percent say he deserves not much or no blame at all. Meanwhile, 67 percent of independents say Bush bears a great deal or a moderate amount of the fault. Only 32 percent exonerate him in whole or in part.

With Obama in his backyard, Republican House Speaker John Boehner landed a preemptive blow with a video blaming Senate Democrats for a congressional logjam that has stalled bills meant to create jobs.

In the video, the Ohio lawmaker points to documents covering his desk, identifying them as House-passed legislation blocked by the Democratic-held Senate.

"This isn't just our work?it's your work in progress," Boehner says.

"You see, we're going to keep adding to this pile, and we're going to keep calling on President Obama and Democrats in the Senate to give these jobs bills a vote," he says.

Boehner's message aimed to turn the tables on Obama?and on Democrats in general, who charge that House Republicans have locked up legislation to create jobs. The White House has described the House-passed bills?one of which would repeal "Obamacare"?as partisan nonstarters.

Obama also planned to travel to New York to visit ground zero and attend a pair of fundraisers aimed at scooping up $4.5 million for his campaign. One of the events will be hosted by actress Sarah Jessica Parker and Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Fifty guests there are due to pay $40,000 each.

"Running for president is an expensive proposition," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One.

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