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A Final Push in Swing States, in a Bid to Break the Stalemate A Final Push in Swing States, in a Bid to Break the Stalemate
(about 3 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The presidential candidates on Tuesday will begin their last, intense assaults on a handful of battleground states, aiming to break the nation’s political stalemate by marrying repeated personal appearances with multimillion dollar TV ad barrages. WASHINGTON — President Obama and Mitt Romney embraced dueling imperatives as they began their sprint to the finish on Tuesday: trying to close the sale with moderate and undecided voters through high-minded appeals and a centrist tone even as they sought to energize their ideological bases and disqualify each other with a barrage of new attacks.
On Tuesday, airports in Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Ohio will be seized with the comings and goings of campaign jets as President Obama, Mitt Romney and their running mates campaign during the final and post-debate phase of the long contest to occupy the White House. The swing-state saturation continues on Wednesday, when Mr. Obama plans a continuous, 48-hour, six-state blitz. Mr. Romney lands in Iowa on Wednesday just hours after the president departs. Both campaigns have enough money to pay for thousands of thirty- and sixty-second spots throughout the contested states. Mr. Obama seized on both tasks quickly on Tuesday, emerging from his final debate with Mr. Romney to unveil a slick booklet restating his second-term agenda and a gauzy television ad in which he looks into the camera and declares: “It’s an honor to be your president, and I’m asking for your vote.”
One of those will be a new commercial from Mr. Obama in which the president extols progress the country has made toward economic recovery and talks directly to voters about his plan for the next four years. It will run in seven battleground states, the campaign said. At an enthusiastic rally of about 11,000 supporters in Delray Beach, Fla., Mr. Obama referred to the agenda, saying, “look right here and find out what it is I intend to do in a second term.” Aides said they are printing 3.5 million copies of the pamphlet to mail and hand out in battleground states.
“Read my plan, compare it to Governor Romney’s and decide which is better for you,” Mr. Obama says in the ad. “It’s an honor to be your president, and I’m asking for your vote so together we can keep moving America forward.” But moments later, Mr. Obama returned to his urgent effort to disqualify Mr. Romney as a legitimate successor in the Oval Office. The Republican candidate, he said, wants to “turn back the clock 50 years for immigrants and gays and women” and is pursuing a foreign policy that is “all over the map.”
Mr. Obama’s campaign is also printing 3.5 million of copies of a new, 20-page booklet of his promises for the next four years, campaign officials said. A short version of the booklet has been posted online and 1.5 million copies of the full document will be distributed to campaign field offices across the battleground states. The effort is a response to Mr. Romney’s repeated criticism that the president has no second-term agenda.
“The new economic patriotism,” the booklet says on the cover. “A plan for jobs & middle class security.”
Mr. Romney’s campaign also released a new ad on Tuesday, using footage from Monday’s foreign policy debate in which Mr. Romney accuses the president of conducting an “apology tour,” a charge that Mr. Obama and independent fact-checkers say is false.
“The president began with an apology tour, of going to various nations and criticizing America,” Mr. Romney says in the ad. He said America’s adversaries “looked at that and saw weakness.”
The final period of retail and electronic campaigning signals the abrupt end to a monthlong phase dominated by the debates and their heavily spun aftermath.
Mr. Obama used the final presidential debate of his career on Monday to repeatedly confront Mr. Romney, assailing him for offering “wrong and reckless” leadership on foreign policy and repeatedly seeking to return the conversation to America’s economic problems at home.
He continued the no-holds-barred critique of Mr. Romney Tuesday morning at a rally in Delray Beach, Fla., where he accused his rival of changing his positions so many times that he needs Obamacare to cover his pre-existing condition of “Romnesia.”
“Florida,” Mr. Obama said, “You know me. You can trust what I say.”
Strategists for the Republican campaign said Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, enters the final two weeks having upended the race’s summertime dynamic and in a position to win the presidency.
Recent polls back up these claims that Mr. Romney appears to have momentum on his side. Mr. Obama’s double-digit leads from a month ago in national and state surveys have gotten much smaller, if not evaporated. In several polls, Mr. Romney has all but tied the race with just 14 days left.
But the real test of Mr. Romney’s ability to win will not come until after both camps engage in a brutal, last push. Key to that push is the race to 270, the number of electoral votes needed to win the election. With more than 40 states now basically uncompetitive, the two campaigns are intensifying their focus on the six or seven that are truly close.
Those calculations are fueling a travel schedule that will force the president and Mr. Romney to visit just about every region of the country multiple times. There are competitive battleground states in the South, the West, the Midwest, the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. None can be taken lightly in a race that remains very close.
After visiting Florida and Ohio on Tuesday, Mr. Obama’s six-state swing on Wednesday will begin with stops in Davenport, Iowa; Denver and Las Vegas. Campaign aides said the president would call undecided voters and campaign volunteers while flying on Air Force One between stops. On Thursday, Mr. Obama will be back in Florida and Ohio, as well as Virginia.
Also on Wednesday, Mr. Obama will make a stop in Los Angeles to tape an appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno.
Mr. Romney will begin his post-debate travels on Tuesday with his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, as both men campaign in Nevada and Colorado. On Wednesday, Mr. Romney will make another stop in Nevada and then continue on to Iowa.Mr. Romney will begin his post-debate travels on Tuesday with his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, as both men campaign in Nevada and Colorado. On Wednesday, Mr. Romney will make another stop in Nevada and then continue on to Iowa.
In previous campaigns, when candidates abided by federal spending limits during the general election, the two sides were often forced by financial realities to abandon long-shot states in favor of a final push in those they thought they could really win. With polls suggesting that Mr. Romney has seized momentum in the race, the president’s top strategists said they will make final appeals to independents, moderates, women and members of minority groups even as they offer lacerating assessments of Mr. Romney’s lack of qualifications or credibility.
But with Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney both flush with cash now, neither campaign showed any desire to pull out of any of the potential battleground states. “I think it is a single message,” David Axelrod, the president’s top strategist, said Tuesday morning. He said Mr. Obama’s “strong message” contrasts sharply with a Republican candidate who is “uncertain, unsteady, and whose policies have been consistently wrong.”
The president continued to campaign in Florida even as polls suggested that Mr. Romney is stronger there. Mr. Romney scheduled two stops in Nevada, where polls suggest that Mr. Obama is doing well. Mr. Romney’s campaign responded by pointing to what they said are “increasingly desperate attacks” and issued a memorandum to reporters dismissing Mr. Obama’s agenda as nothing more than a “glossy pamphlet.” Lanhee Chen, Mr. Romney’s policy director, accused the president’s administration of “intellectual bankruptcy.”
Their efforts were also supplemented by third-party groups that are also targeting the same battleground states on behalf of the candidates Crossroads GPS, a group backing Mr. Romney, is releasing a new ad in Wisconsin and Ohio featuring the parents of a sick child that Mr. Romney befriended years ago. The tone was an abrupt shift from Monday night’s debate, when Mr. Romney aimed squarely for the political center and repeatedly agreed with the president even as Mr. Obama launched a barrage of attacks. By Tuesday, Mr. Romney’s reticence to challenge his rival was gone as his campaign released a television ad accusing the president of apologizing for America around the world.
“To spent time with a 14-year-old boy in his last days, you cannot help but know that he’s caring,” the boy’s mother says of Mr. Romney in the ad. “He cares about people and about their needs. I think he’s going to be able to get us back on track. I really do.” “The president began with an apology tour, of going to various nations and criticizing America,” Mr. Romney says in the ad. He said America’s adversaries “looked at that and saw weakness.”
Priorities USA, Mr. Burton’s group, is planning to spend several million dollars on ads in the battleground states that will try to refocus attention on Mr. Romney’s record at Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded. Both men immediately fanned out across the country for a final blitz of the seven or eight battleground states that their advisers believe will decide who can claim 270 electoral votes to win on election day. Mr. Obama opened in Florida with the first of three rallies on Tuesday before starting a 48-hour, six-state blitz on Wednesday. Mr. Romney flew to Nevada for his late-night rally, leaving Tuesday’s stage largely to Mr. Obama.
The group will pay to rerun one of its early ads, called “Stage,” which describes one of the companies that Bain closed and the impact on workers. The brutal, final push will take the president and Mr. Romney to just about every region of the country multiple times in the next 14 days. There are competitive battleground states in the South, the West, the Midwest, the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. None can be taken lightly in a race that remains very close.
Mr. Burton’s group said that it will also produce new ads “featuring stories of people who represent the thousands of middle-class workers who lost their jobs, their pensions and their health benefits after Romney and his firm broke promises and bankrupted companies.” Mr. Obama’s six-state swing on Wednesday will begin with stops in Davenport, Iowa; Denver, Las Vegas and a brief stop in Los Angeles to tape an appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno. On Thursday, Mr. Obama will be back in Florida and Ohio, as well as Virginia.
With voting already underway in many of the most competitive states, strategists for both sides predicted that victory is within reach after a long and contentious political summer.
Strategists for the Republican campaign said Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, enters the final two weeks having upended the race’s summertime dynamic and in a position to win the presidency. Mr. Obama’s double-digit leads from a month ago in national and state surveys have largely shrunk or evaporated.
“As much as President Obama might try, you can’t gloss over four years like the last four,” Mr. Chen wrote for Mr. Romney’s campaign. “And you can’t fool the American people into thinking you have a real plan for the future when all you are offering is more of the same.”
Aides to the president expressed confidence in the voter turnout organization they have spent years building. Jim Messina, the president’s campaign manager, said the Democratic effort is outperforming the 2008 campaign in many places. He predicted that turnout among young people and minorities is likely to be higher than most people expect.
And Mr. Obama’s advisers dismissed concerns about polls showing the race tightening. They said they always expected that to happen and that the large number of public polls created an “illusion of volatility” in the race.
“We have the ball. We have the lead. We have a great push-off as a result of these last two very strong debate performance,” Mr. Axelrod said. “I’m just telling you guys: We know what we know and they know what they know.”
He added: “We will know who’s bluffing in two weeks.”
Before leaving Florida Tuesday morning, Mr. Obama urged his supporters to goto the polls on Saturday, when early voting in the state begins. Seeking to blunt criticism that he has not been specific about proposals he would pursue in second term, he held up a newly printed brochure of his jobs and education plans, and pronounced that his “math adds up.”
“Compare my plan to Governor Romney’s,” Mr. Obama said.
He then delivered a no-holds-barred assault on Mr. Romney, accusing his Republican rival of changing his positions so many times that he needs Obamacare to cover his pre-existing condition of “Romnesia.”

Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Delray Beach, Fla.

Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Delray Beach, Fla.