ACV Democratic News: President Obama in Virginia, Fired Up, Ready to Go

Multiple Thousands of supporters greeted the president at Green Run High School in Virginia Beach, Phoebus High in Hampton, and, for his last stop of the day, the Historic Fire Station No. 1 in Roanoke.

Virginians across the state have been lining up for a chance to get tickets to see President Obama on his five-stop campaign tour in Virginia this week. Supporters, sporting umbrellas and water bottles to cope with the summer heat, have been waiting in lines—some with as many as 2,000 folks—for the opportunity.

It’s about showing your support for the guy who’s been an amazing leader on the economy, health care, and women’s rights. He has the backs of middle-class families, and the progress I see is evidence that he’s taking us in the right direction. We’ve got to pick up those phones and knock on those doors to make sure he wins in November. Whatever it takes.

Virginia gave 52.6 percent of her vote to President Barack Obama in 2008, the first time you went Democratic since the 1960s. It is now time to vote and give the President a second term

The president was traveling with Virginia Senator Mark Warner, the state’s most popular Democratic official, and Tim Kaine, a former governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee who endorsed Obama early in his 2008 bid for the White House. Kaine is challenging Republican George Allen for a Senate seat, with polls showing them running even.

President Obama remembers his youth growing up and going on vacation. “When I was 11 years old, my grandmother, my mother, my sister and me, we traveled the country — but we didn’t go on jets. We took Greyhound and the train, and I think twice we rented a car. And we’d stay at Howard Johnsons. And if there was a pool somewhere, no matter — it could look like a puddle it could be so small — I was so excited. And you’d go to the ice machine and the vending machine — I was 11 years old; that was a big deal filling up that bucket of ice and getting that soda.”

Obama made a stop at Rick’s Cafe in Virginia Beach, a modest restaurant with a Cajun menu in a suburban mall. He met with Jennifer Farlin, a mother of two who owns an interior design firm — and whose family has seen about $4,100 in tax cuts over the president’s first term, the White House noted.

President Obama touted tax relief for the middle class and his health-care law and more, and painted his Republican rival as someone ready to undo it all. Romney and the republicans want to do away with all benefits for the middle class, social security- medicare- women's healthcare- The American Health Care Act also known as OBAMA CARES. In addition to all those take away's republicans want to raise taxes on the muddle class and poor. The only winners with the republicans are the wealthy and big business.

“All these things that I’m talking about, it all goes back to that first campaign I ran,,” Obama told the Virginians today. “It all goes back to my family and your family, and this basic idea of how we make sure that the middle class is strong and growing in this country — how do we make sure that folks who aren’t quite there yet, if they work hard enough, can get into that sense of security and take care of their families.”

The president closed with an appeal to “finish what we started in 2008.”

Supporters stuck it out through a rainstorm to hear President Obama speak in Glen Allen, Virginia.    As the President continued on to Clifton, a few audience members reacted to what they heard:

    "When I compare Mitt Romney to President Obama, there is a stark contrast. It's so clear that President Obama has he backs of middle-class Americans. My family and so many other families in Glen Allen are seeing the benefits from things like the Affordable Care Act and middle class tax cuts."
    —Rob

    "This is a once in a lifetime experience—to hear the President speak in your own community. This is a huge battleground county in the state, so it goes to show that he’s fighting hard to win this election. He's fighting hard for us."
    —Rosa

    "The economy is picking up slowly but surely. We're heading in the right direction with President Obama. We've got to re-elect President Obama to finish the job. Middle-class America can't wait, and we can't afford go with the alternative."
    —Alicia

    "President Obama is the only candidate who understands middle-class America. I'm going to fight to make sure he stays in office. I will volunteer, knock on doors, and make those calls. I have one thing to say to Virginia: 'Don't go on the hype—go on the facts.' President Obama gets it. Four more years."
    —Juanita

    "I think the proposed middle class tax cuts and ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy is only fair. I think we’ve all come to agree that people of means should pay their fair share—we should all pay our fair share. That’s what’s needed to rebuild the infrastructure in this country and rebuild the economy."
    —Bob

    "As a retired Spanish teacher and someone on Medicare, I think that the President has done his best to implement policies that help me—from the Affordable Care Act to middle class tax cuts and education reform. It is all so important, and I know he has my best interests at heart."
    —Addie

Politically vulnerable Democrats across the country may be shying away from President Barack Obama.     But not Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine.

Former Gov. Kaine on Friday got to play sidekick and opening act for Obama as the commander in chief made a three-stop campaign swing in his home state.

Kaine touted the president's economic record, praised his re-election campaign and generally fired up the crowd in his introductory speech for the president at Obama's first rally Friday, in Virginia Beach.

Kaine is waging one of the most-watched Senate campaigns in the country in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Jim Webb. Political strategists say the race, occurring in a crucial swing state, is the down-ballot contest that will be most closely tied to the presidential race.

In many competitive states across the country, politically vulnerable Democrats are skipping attendance at this summer's Democratic National Convention, where Obama will receive the party's nomination. Others, such as North Carolina Reps. Larry Kissell and Mike McIntyre, have refused to endorse the president, and others are using advertising to directly distance themselves from Obama. But Kaine's decision to tour with Obama Friday makes clear his willingness to align himself with the president despite his low poll numbers in many competitive states.

A poll released Wednesday from Public Policy Polling suggests that there's method behind Kaine's decision-making.   "He may receive coattails from Barack Obama, who's faring quite well in the state at this point," PPP president Dean Debnam said in his analysis.
That poll showed the Senate race to currently be a tossup, with Kaine receiving 46 percent to 44 percent for Allen.    The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

The president on Friday had Kaine as well as Democratic Sen. Mark Warner fly with him on Air Force One to their first stop in Virginia Beach, where both introduced the president.

Mitt Romney spent a full day whining about his hurt feelings and asking for an apology from President Obama.    Mitt even wants special treatment in a political contest. Mitt is a wussy living in a protected world with too many special deals and no empathy for normal people.

GLEN ALLEN, Va. — Apparently, there will be no apology.

President Barack Obama’s response to rival Mitt Romney’s repeated requests for those two little words was clear on Saturday.   As the president campaigned across Virginia, Obama kept up the attacks on Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, accusing the Republican of investing in companies that “pioneered” the practice of shipping jobs overseas.

“I don’t want a pioneer in outsourcing.    I want some in-sourcing,” Obama said as he stood, soaked, in a downpour at an outdoor rally in Glen Allen, a suburb of Richmond.    “I want to bring companies back.”

Obama promised to shorten his remarks to the 900 supporters standing the rain.

“Ladies, I do apologize for your hairdos getting messed up,” he joked.    ”We’re going to have to treat everybody to a little salon visit after this.”

As the president spoke, his campaign released an emphatic television ad that claimed Romney’s companies “shipped jobs to Mexico and China”;    that as governor he outsourced state jobs to India;   and that he had millions of dollars in a Swiss bank account and tax shelters in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

The ad is set to music:   Romney’s halting rendition of   “America the Beautiful”   from a January campaign stop in Florida.

“Mitt Romney is not the solution.   He’s the problem,”   the ad says.

The spot is Obama’s third ad currently hitting the outsourcing issue.    The new one was airing in states that are targets for both candidates.

The onslaught demonstrates the Obama campaign’s confidence in the damage it could do to Romney by hammering at his role at Bain Capital, the venture capital company he co-founded.

Romney has argued that he isn’t responsible for the outsourcing and bankruptcies at Bain investments after 1999, when he says he stopped managing the day-to-day operations, but the Obama team has seized fresh evidence that Romney retained at least a titular role after that date.

Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter suggested Romney may have committed a felony in misreporting his role to federal regulators.     Romney called the charge out of line and demanded an apology, but the fight has for several days pushed Romney off his economic message.    (The former Massachusetts governor spent Saturday at his New Hampshire lake house.)    Romney is fond of taking weekends off.     Too bad the Presidency is a 24 hour a day 7 day a week full time job.

Obama’s stop in Richmond and a later rally in the northern Virginia suburb of Clifton wrapped up a two-day swing through a state crucial to his chances of winning in November.     Obama won Virginia in 2008, the first Democratic presidential candidate to do so since 1964.     Most polls show him with a slim lead, but the president will likely need a strong turnout in the fast-growing Washington, D.C., suburbs, the city of Richmond, and black pockets of the state, as well as among independent voters in the suburbs.

Obama’s trip was aimed at the latter group.    He spent Friday in the Tidewater area, reaching out to military families and talking up his push to extend lower income tax rates for households earning less than $250,000.    He stuck to that script again Saturday.

“I believe in middle-out economics, a bottom-up economics. I believe that when hardworking Americans are doing well, everybody does well,”   he told a group of more than 2,000 people at Centreville High School in Clifton.