Obama: Romney's tough talk on China "not credible"
(CBS News) Mitt Romney's tough talk on U.S.-Chinese relations is "just not credible," President Obama told a crowd of supporters at a rally at Ohio's Bowling Green State University Wednesday.
"He says he's going to take the fight to them," Mr. Obama said of his Republican rival. "That message is better than what he's actually done about this thing... When you hear this newfound outrage, it feels a lot more like the fox saying we need more secure chicken coops."
Both Mr. Obama and Romney took their campaigns on Wednesday to the critical swing state of Ohio, where the state of the once-robust manufacturing sector makes the debate over outsourcing and trade with China especially resonant.
In Westerville, Ohio, earlier in the day, Romney said, "We're going to crack down on China.... They've stolen our jobs; that's gotta stop."
Mr. Obama said that kind of rhetoric didn't hold up to "all those years [Romney] spent profiting from our jobs sent" to China. By contrast, the president said, "I'm not just talking the talk." He boasted of bringing more trade cases against China in one term than the previous administration did in two. "And by the way, we've been winning those cases."
Mr. Obama also defended his decision to place a tariff on Chinese tires in 2009 that Romney has criticized. "We've got over 1,000 American workers back to work producing American tires," the president said. "If you want to know who's going to actually fight for workers and fight for American jobs, you can look at the record. Look at who said what before election time."
The Romney campaign has called the tariff ineffective while blaming it for higher costs for American consumers.
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The president today also touted his decision to expand the auto bailout, noting that the auto industry supports one in eight Ohio jobs and supports businesses in 82 out of 88 Ohio counties.
According to the latest Quinnipiac University/ CBS News/ New York Times poll, Mr. Obama has opened up a 10-point lead in Ohio, besting Romney 53 percent to 43 percent. At Bowling Green University, Mr. Obama was likely to find an especially welcoming audience -- the poll shows that voters ages 18 to 34 in Ohio prefer the president over Romney, 66 percent to 31 percent.
In the Quinnipiac/ CBS/ NYT poll, 60 percent of likely Ohio voters described the auto bailout as a success, while 30 percent characterized it as a failure. Fifty-one percent of Ohio voters said Mr. Obama would do a better job on the economy, while 45 percent said Romney would.
Romney is campaigning vigorously in the state, making three stops in Ohio Wednesday as he wraps up a bus tour there.
Early voting starts in the swing state on October 2, in just six days, and Mr. Obama on Wednesday urged the students to get out and vote. He noted that the student who introduced him at the rally had a broken wrist, remarking, "If Seth can come up here with a broken wrist, there is not a student here who cannot get registered and make sure they go to vote. No excuses -- you gotta play through injuries."
