MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Obama launches re-election bid; attacks Romney for promising “to cut taxes for the rich”

The US president says his multi millionaire adversary does not know much about the average American

President Barack Obama plunged into his campaign for a new term and tore into rival Mitt Romney on Saturday for being willing and eager to “rubber stamp” a conservative Republican congressional agenda to cut taxes for the rich while slashing spending on programs that benefit an embattled middle class.

Romney and his “friends in Congress think the same bad ideas will lead to a different result, or they’re just hoping you won’t remember what happened the last time you tried it their way,” the president told an audience estimated at over 18.000 supporters at what aides insisted was his first full-fledged political rally of the election year.

Six months before Election Day, the polls point to a close race between Obama and Romney, with the economy the overriding issue as the US struggles to recover from the worst recession since the 1930s. Unemployment remains stubbornly high at 8.1% nationally, although it has receded slowly and unevenly since peaking several months into the president’s term. The most recent dip was due to discouraged jobless giving up their search for work.

Romney has staked his candidacy on an understanding of the economy, developed through a successful career as a businessman, and his promise to enact policies that stimulate job creation.

But Obama said his rival was merely doing the bidding of the conservative power brokers in Congress and has little understanding of the struggles of average Americans.

Romney “doesn’t seem to understand that maximizing profits by whatever means necessary, whether it’s through layoffs or outsourcing or tax avoidance, union busting, might not always be good for the average American or for the American economy,” the president said.

“Why else would he want to cut his own taxes while raising them for 18 million Americans,” Obama said of his multi-millionaire opponent.

The president’s campaign chose Ohio State University, the biggest college campus in a perennial swing state, and Virginia Commonwealth University for the back-to-back rallies. In 2008, Obama won Ohio while reversing decades of Republican dominance in Virginia. Since then, Virginia and Ohio have swung back toward the Republicans in state wide elections.

Obama has attended numerous fundraisers this election year, but over the escalating protests of Republicans, the White House has categorized all of his other appearances so far as part of his official presidential duties.

“When people ask you what this election is about, you tell them it is still about hope. You tell them it is still about change,” he said. It was a rebuttal to Romney’s campaign, which has lately taken to mocking Obama’s 2008 campaign mantra as “hype and blame.”

A Romney campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, responding to Obama’s speech in Ohio, said, “While President Obama all but ignored his record over 3 ½ years in office, the American people won’t. This November, they will hold him accountable for his broken promises and ineffective leadership.”