Obama heads out on last-week push
President visits R.I. factory, attends fundraising parties
WOONSOCKET, R.I. – President Barack Obama plunged into a final week of midterm election campaigning Monday, his party’s prognosis darkened by a feeble economy and his itinerary stitched together to minimize losses to resurgent Republicans.
Nor was his greeting totally friendly in Rhode Island, where Obama has pointedly declined to endorse his party’s candidate for governor.
Obama can “take his endorsement and shove it,” declared Democrat Frank Caprio, battling Republican-turned-independent Lincoln Chafee in a gubernatorial race rated tight in the polls. Chafee endorsed Obama during the 2008 campaign for the White House.
In a little more than five hours in the state, Obama was booked for a factory tour and for a pair of fundraisers that party officials said would bring in $500,000.
Visiting a company that makes buckles and straps for outdoor and travel gear, he said he and the Democrats in Congress have cut taxes 16 times in 20 months. Republicans “talk a good game” when it comes to tax cuts, he said, but in fact they opposed several bills he labored to get passed.
“It’s not enough to just play politics,” he said. “You can’t focus on the next election. You’ve got to focus on the next generation.”
Democrats relied on more than the president’s time to boost their chances in the final days of the campaign. There was the matter of federal funds, too, in the form of hundreds of millions in grants announced during the day to provide high-speed rail service in California, between Chicago and Iowa, and elsewhere. Administration officials left it to Democratic lawmakers to make the announcements, and they did, stressing the job-creating potential of the expansions.
Eight days before the election, the principal uncertainty concerned the size and scope of anticipated Democratic losses in the House, the Senate, governor’s races and state legislatures.
An Associated Press-GfK Poll showed that perhaps one-third of all voters have yet to firmly settle on their choices. But that wasn’t encouraging for the Democrats, either. Some 45 percent of them prefer the Republican candidate for the House, and 38 percent like the Democrat.