Jerome R. Corsi's Blog, page 314

Romney playing for keeps on Obama's turf

TRAVELING WITH THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN – Mitt Romney is campaigning in Wisconsin today because he thinks he can win the state that Barack Obama won by nearly 14 points in 2008, says top Romney strategist Stuart Stevens.

“There’s no bluffing in this game now,” Stevens told WND.

With Romney scheduling rallies in the final days of the campaign in Pennsylvania as well as Wisconsin, top strategists have concluded Obama is now on the defensive. The president has been forced to re-visit states and spend money in an expanding list of swing states.

At the rally in Milwaukee today, legendary Green Bay Packers quarterback Bart Starr, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker introduced Romney.

Romney spoke to a crowd of some 2,500 supporters who gathered inside a window manufacturer’s warehouse at the Wisconsin Products Pavilion at the State Fair Park. Another 2,500 supporters could not get into the building and watched from a large outdoor TV screen.

“This state will help me become the next president of the United States,” he told the enthusiastic crowd.

It’s a message similar to one he has delivered to supporters in Ohio.

“Next to Ann Romney, Paul Ryan is the best choice I ever made,” Romney quipped, acknowledging to the Wisconsin audience that his vice presidential running mate is a native of the state.

“We are so very grateful to you and to people across the country, for all that you have given of yourselves to this campaign,” he said. “This is not just about Paul and me – it is about America, and the future we will leave to our children. We thank you, and we ask you to stay at it all the way – all the way to victory on Tuesday night.”

‘Day One, Job One’

At a gaggle held aboard Romney’s campaign airplane Wednesday, Kevin Madden, Romney’s campaign manager, stressed the Republican nominee intended to maintain a positive tone and lay out a vision of what he would do in the first days of a Romney presidency.

“For the remainder of the campaign, until Election Day, the governor wants to talk about specifically what he would do on taking office to get the country back on track and fix the economy,” Madden said.

“Day One, Job One” is Romney’s theme “related to creating jobs, fixing schools, getting America energy independent,” said Madden.

Madden stressed the Romney campaign has managed in the final weeks to capture the momentum.

“We can and we will win Ohio,” Madden said.

“If you take a number of these polls together, the trend line is in our favor. What I find very encouraging is that Gov. Romney is leading with independents. But where we feel most confident is that we are playing offense with the map, while the Obama campaign has been forced to play defense.”

This is the reason, Madden said, that the Romney campaign is holding rallies in states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which once were considered safe for Obama.

The Romney campaign’s strategy is to give Obama no choice but to spend additional time and money in the final hours of the campaign visiting states such as Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and spending money with new advertising in the attempt to avoid erosion of Electoral College vote base.

“Obama is defending territory while we’re playing offense,” Madden argued. “As a result, we feel we are very well-positioned right now.”

See the Milwaukee video:

Romney gains momentum

Only a few months ago, conservatives generally accepted that Mitt Romney was going to be the only viable alternative to four more years of Barack Obama’s presidency – a reality that reluctantly united most behind him, if only to oust Obama.

Now, as the presidential campaign draws rapidly to a close, opponents of Obama have picked up on Romney’s emphasis on smaller government, fewer regulations and reduced taxes – all key elements of the supply-side economics identified as “Reaganomics,” which spurred two decades of growth.

In the final days of the 2012 presidential election, swing-state crowds that originally showed up at Romney rallies to oppose Barack Obama have showed enthusiasm for a Romney presidency, convinced not only that Romney is more capable than Obama of setting the U.S. back on the path of economic prosperity, but that Romney represents their values and their vision of a strong America.

A Romney-Ryan rally held at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Golden, Colo., Oct. 23 was perhaps a threshold point, when an overflow crowd of 12,500 supporters demonstrated their determination to see Romney in person.

See the Red Rocks video:

Red Rocks is a high-altitude amphitheater that requires parking in one of several lots located in various locations scattered around the top of the winding approach to the venue, requiring attendees, including the elderly and the infirm, to climb on foot what could amount to as much as a half-mile.

Many spectators arrived four or five hours early for the evening event, just to get a good seat in the first-come, first-serve seating in the tiered outdoors theater.

More than 2,000 people were turned away because the fire marshal determined admitting more was unsafe.

As seen in the video, Romney volunteers handed out T-shirts to attendees to form in the crowd the colorful red, white, blue and yellow Colorado state emblem.

As Romney concluded his speech, the crowd, on to its feet for most of the address, cheered loudly and emotionally, picking up on his crescendo while drowning out many of his words.

“It matters for the future of our planet to have a nation like ours, the leader of the world to be strong and robust, with a strong military, a strong economy, and strong values, and strong allies,” Romney said. “We’re going to make it happen. We can do it together. I love this country. I believe in America. I believe in you and we can do it.”

After four years of Obama denying American exceptionalism while conducting an apology tour around the world, Romney’s message resonated.

At a rally held last night in Virginia Beach, Va., a large crowd of some 15,000 supporters showed up on a chilly evening and stood, some for more than an hour, in an open-field grandstand, for a chance to see Romney.

The rally had originally been scheduled for the day after Hurricane Sandy hit and was rescheduled through active campaign ground-work, including phone calls and emails. Notice was given the public only on Wednesday.

See the Virginia Beach video:

When Romney was introduced, the applause was sustained; thundersticks handed out by the campaign intensified the noise.

Romney started with his charge that the time for “real change” is now, a line borrowed and modified from Obama’s 2008 campaign.

To a series of questions Romney posed about whether the audience wanted four more years of various economic failures, including 23 million unemployed, declining earnings and rising taxes, trillion dollar deficits every year, and gridlock in Washington, D.C., supporters shouted a resounding “No.”

Picking up on the Obama theme of “four more years,” Romney encouraged the crowd to chant “five more days” – the length of time left to the presidential election.

“Attacking me is not an agenda for a second term,” Romney said, emphasizing his intent to remain positive.

“On Day One, we’ll bring real change,” he promised, again to sustained applause.

Super storm diverts Romney campaign

CELINA, Ohio – The Mitt Romney campaign has adjusted activities so as not to complicate Hurricane Sandy emergency and relief operations, senior campaign adviser Kevin Madden told WND at the conclusion of a Romney-Ryan rally in Celina, Ohio – itself a last-minute reschedule after the campaign cancelled rallies Gov. Romney had originally planned to attend in Virginia on Sunday.

“The schedule we have locked down for now involves the states not directly impacted by the storm,” Madden said. “Our top concern is for the safety of the people in harms way.”

Late Sunday, the Romney camp cancelled plans for Gov. Romney to travel to New Hampshire for campaign rallies on Tuesday.

Rumors circulated among the press traveling with Romney that the campaign would stay in the Midwest next week, traveling to Iowa and continuing to focus on Ohio, with the possibility campaign trips might be scheduled for Minnesota and Wisconsin, two states that until recently had been considered safely in Obama’s column.

Reporters asked Madden if the story would disrupt the news cycle such that the Romney campaign might not be able to make the planned closing argument in pivotal East Coast states including Virginia and New Hampshire.

“It’s been a long campaign and a lot of folks have gotten a lot of information about both campaigns,” he responded. “Right now the safety of the people in the states affected by the storm is the top concern of the campaign, not additional campaigning.”

Madden reinforced this point by telling reporters the Romney campaign has halted fundraising in states likely to be affected by the storm, including D.C., Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York and New Jersey.

He explained to WND the campaign’s strategy was to hold margins in Cuyahoga County, Ohio’s most densely populated county encompassing Cleveland, a bastion of Democratic Party strength, and to increase both turnout and margins in the state’s traditionally Republican smaller towns and rural areas.

“Our strategy in Ohio is pretty simple,” Madden quipped. “Get more votes than the other guy.”

Evidencing the importance of Ohio to Romney winning the presidency, the campaign decided to bring Romney and Ryan together to barnstorm Ohio.

Though Celina was originally billed as a Ryan-only rally point, the town of approximately 10,000 people in central western Ohio on the border with Indiana got an unexpected in-person visit from Gov. Romney, as 2,000 packed in the town’s high school basketball arena for a rally, while another 1,000 overflow Romney supporters gathered on a grandstand on the adjoining football field.

When the rally in the arena was concluded, Romney and Ryan walked over to the grandstand to address the outdoors overflow crowd for another 10 minutes.

Reporters asked Madden if Romney’s economic message would resonate in western Ohio where unemployment is typically much better than the national average.

“We’ve talked to voters about America reaching its full employment potential,” Madden commented, noting that unemployment in Mercer County is currently at 3.9 percent, an achievement the state’s Republican governor attributes to implementing strategies compatible with the presidential campaign’s emphasis on creating business-friendly tax and regulatory environments.

As Romney joined Ryan in Ohio, a controversy was developing over a TV advertisement produced by the Romney-Ryan campaign – hitting back at Obama campaign claims Romney did not support the auto bailout – pointing out Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and is now allowing Fiat, a major shareholder in the government-restructured Chrysler, to build Jeeps in China.

The Obama campaign has denounced the ad as misleading, insisting that Chrysler was building a plant in China to sell Jeeps in China, not closing its U.S. Jeep production or planning to import from China into the U.S. Jeeps made in China.

Late Sunday afternoon, the Romney campaign traveled northeast to Findlay, Ohio, where a rally originally scheduled for Ryan alone at the Koehler Athletic Complex at the University of Findlay was attended by another 2,000 enthusiastic Ryan/Romney supporters.

Romney also made a plea for fans in Ohio to help victims of the storm. Video here:

'10 more days!' Florida crowds enthusiastic for Romney

TRAVELING WITH THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN IN FLORIDA – “Ten more days!” the crowds at the Florida Romney rallies chanted today, ready to count off the days until Barack Obama is defeated and President-elect Mitt Romney begins preparing for a new administration in the White House.

Romney spoke to three large overflow crowds, delivering a positive message of real economic recovery and jobs brought on by a renewed faith in the private enterprise system.

Marco Rubio attended the first two rallies of the day, at Pensacola and Kissimmee, speaking in Spanish to a large audience numbering approximately 5,000 people including many Hispanics, that overflowed onto the tarmac from an air hanger at the Ranger Jet Center at the Kissimmee airport.

After stepping off the stage at Kissimmee, Rubio was informed his daughter, 12, was being rushed to the hospital after being involved in a car accident.

On the way to the third and last rally of the day, the Romney caravan pulled off the road into a way station, approximately 10 miles east of Tampa, so Rubio could board a police cruiser to leave the campaign tour and rush to Miami to be with his family.

The Miami Herald reported Rubio’s daughter was in stable condition in Miami Children’s Hospital after being airlifted from the scene of the auto accident.

The Romney blitz of Florida rallies occurred as Politico reported a Tampa Bay Times survey of 120 of Florida’s top political advisors, 73 percent of whom expect Romney will win the Sunshine State, compared to only 27 percent who currently believe Obama will take the critical swing state a second time.

Earlier in the day, on the flight from Pensacola to Kissimmee, Rubio came to the back of the Romney campaign airplane to speak with reporters.

“The Hispanic population of Florida is very entrepreneurial, very much focused on upward mobility, not only doing better themselves, but leaving their children better off than they are,” Rubio told reporters. “That’s where our message of free enterprise and limited government is going to continue to do well as we move down the stretch of this campaign.”

Rubio said he was confident in the Republican ground game, and he believed Gov. Romney was “out-hustling” the other side.

“I’d rather be us than them,” Rubio said. “I don’t know a single person who voted the last time for John McCain who is going to vote for Barack Obama, but I know a lot of people that voted for Barack Obama who are now going to vote for Mitt Romney.”

He noted the economic downturn in Florida has been severe.

“Floridians know we can do better economically, that’s why they are excited about four years under Mitt Romney,” he said.

“We will out-perform 2008 in delivering the Hispanic vote to Mitt Romney. The Republican Party speaks to the same desire most Hispanics have – an obsession with leaving their kids better off than themselves. The free enterprise system is the best way to accomplish that goal. There is only one person running now who understands the free enterprise system and that is Mitt Romney.”

The press traveling with Romney threw questions at Rubio, not about the recent Romney surge in the Florida polls, but about why Romney was not more critical of tea party Senate candidate Richard Mourdock who said when a rape victim gets pregnant, God intended the pregnancy to be a gift.

“Gov. Romney has said he doesn’t agree with those statements and Mourdock himself apologized,” Rubio responded, unwilling to be drawn by reporters into a social-issues debate. “But ultimately the issues voters are thinking about on a daily basis are the issues of the economy, job creation, and how to move our country forward.”

At the Pensacola rally earlier in the day, Rubio hit hard on President Obama’s socialist agenda of government control over all aspects of the economy.

“People come to America to get away from these ideas,” he told the audience of over 10,000 people jammed into the arena at Pensacola Civic Center.

Over 1,000 people who lined up outside the arena to see Romney were turned away by fire marshals worried about an over-capacity crowd.

On this the first day of in-person voting in Florida, long lines of those waiting to cast their ballot are being reported across the state.

The Romney campaign ended its day with a third Florida rally in Land O’Lakes, outside Tampa. The same enthusiasm seen in Pensacola and Kissimmee marked the event held at a local football field, with some 10,000 people in attendance.

If the overflowing, cheering crowds are indicative of Romney’s momentum across the state, they point to a base of supporters very determined to go vote for the GOP nominee on Election Day.

'Magic missing' from Obama campaign

TRAVELING WITH THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN – What a difference four years makes.

Mitt Romney is drawing overflow crowds in well-organized barnstorm campaigning, skipping across the nation from Colorado and Nevada, to Iowa and Ohio, with side-trips to Florida, holding two to three rallies a day.

The Obama campaign is also in a cross-country blitz. But comparing the modest crowds Obama is drawing today with the unprecedented crowds that came out for him in 2008 begs the question: “What happened to the Obama magic?”

By the end of October 2008, the campaign of then-Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain was in trouble, as the momentum had swung clearly and irretrievably in the direction of Obama’s “hope and change” campaign.

But this year, Romney, emphasizing jobs and economic growth, is grabbing the enthusiasm from an Obama campaign hard pressed to find a plan for the next four years that successfully explains away the economic hardship of the past four.

Ironically, it’s the Romney campaign that has incorporated the message of “real change, real recovery” into the candidate’s stump speech, with Romney writing emails to supporters that read: “This has become more than just a campaign. It has become a national movement. Americans recognize we can do better as a nation than we’ve done over these last four years.”

That message is oddly reminiscent of Obama’s tactic in 2008 to run against George W. Bush.

The proposition Romney placed before voters in three campaign rallies Thursday in Ohio was that he could deliver where Obama had failed.

Red Rocks

On Tuesday, Romney drew a crowd the Secret Service put at 12,500 – the maximum fire marshals would allow – at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colo., north of Denver.

People of all ages began arriving at noon, ready to make the high-altitude climb from the facility’s many parking lots to the tiered seats of the famed outdoor music venue.

Romney campaign workers handed out red, blue, yellow and white T-shirts to those seated in the center of the audience in a pattern designed to form the logo on the Colorado flag.

The applause for Romney and Ryan in the amphitheater was thundering as the candidates promised supporters that this year the Republican ticket would beat Obama in Colorado, something McCain failed to do in 2008.

See video of the Red Rocks rally:

In 2008, Obama drew a crowd of 100,000 that filled the parks in front of the state capitol in downtown Denver. A crowd that exceeded by 25,000 the 75,000 capacity the Broncos football team draws at Invesco Field watched Obama’s acceptance speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

But on Wednesday, Denver’s fire chief generously estimated just 16,000 came to see Obama at the modest venue of Denver City Park.

At Red Rocks, the Republican enthusiasts heard candidate Romney proclaim “What a place this is!” to loud shouts and wild applause accompanied by the clapping of thundersticks.

In Denver, Obama countered by claiming: “I love Red Rocks more than just about anybody, but it could never hold all of you guys.”

Mitt Romney speaks at rally at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado

On the low road

As the Obama campaign enters the final days, its message appears heavily focused on causes of the far left that are calculated to motivate the Democratic Party’s base in an apparent decision to deemphasize the large mass of independent voters to Romney.

Politico, a Democrat-friendly website, reported this week the Democrats have “gone all in for abortion rights,” noting that contraception advocate Sandra Fluke is prominent on the campaign trail, and Cecile Richards, the head of Planned Parenthood, recently introduced Obama at a Virginia campaign rally.

Foreign Policy noted the sexually suggestive “first time” ad featuring Lena Dunham is a rip-off of a presidential campaign ad used earlier this year by Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Keeping Obama off the campaign trail for a series of MTV-like interviews may be calculated to appeal to college voters, but the strategy does not address the fear of graduating with large tuition debts and meager prospects of jobs equal to the educational levels achieved.

All indications are that Obama intends to run a negative closing game, as the Des Moines Register front page suggested this week, attempting to scare a far-left base regarding how much it will lose in social welfare and lifestyle benefits if Romney is elected, while Romney advances a positive plan to revive the economy, reduce energy prices and put the nation back to work.

If the Red Rocks rally was any indication of the mood across the country, the Republican base has enough energy to propel its ticket to the White House.

Romney presses Obama in major address on economy

TRAVELING WITH THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN – In a major policy address, Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney presented his vision for achieving genuine economic growth in the next four years, while charging Barack Obama with a record of failure in his stewardship of the economy.

The speech in Ames, Iowa, today not only gave Romney the chance to fill out details of the five-point plan he referenced during the presidential debates, it also applied additional pressure to Obama, whose campaign produced the first statement of a second-term economic plan in a glossy campaign brochure printed after the debates ended.

A legacy of failed policies

“President Obama promised to bring us together, but at every turn, he has sought to divide and demonize,” Romney said to the 1,500 supporters who braved the chilly autumn weather.

“President Obama promised to cut the deficit in half, but he doubled it. And his budget? It failed to win a single vote, Republican or Democrat, in either the House or the Senate. He said he would reform Medicare and Social Security and save them from pending insolvency, but he shrank from proposing any solution at all.”

Romney hit Obama hard on the theme of jobs.

“The president’s campaign has a slogan: It is ‘Forward,’” Romney noted. “But to the 23 million Americans struggling to find a good job, these last four years feel a lot more like ‘backward.’ We cannot afford four more years like the last four years.”

He charged Obama made the economic problems he inherited worse by the policies he adopted, ticking off the following list of failed initiatives:

“In just four short years, the president borrowed nearly $6 trillion, adding almost as much debt held by the public as all prior American presidents in history.”
“He forced through Obamacare, frightening small business from hiring new employees and adding thousands of dollars to every family’s healthcare bill.”
“He launched an onslaught of new regulations, often to the delight of the biggest banks and corporations but to the detriment of the small, growing businesses that create two-thirds of our jobs.”

As a consequence, Romney argued, new business starts are at a 30-year low because entrepreneurs and investors are sitting on the sidelines, “weary from the president’s staggering new regulations and proposed massive tax increases.”

He charged that Obama’s decision to invest taxpayer money in green companies fostered crony capitalism and bankruptcy in companies such as Solyndra, Tesla, Fisker and Ener 1.

Romney said energy prices were up in part because energy production on federal lands is down, because Obama rejected the Keystone Pipeline from Canada and administration cut in half drilling permits and leases, even as gasoline prices soared to new highs.

“No, the problem with the Obama economy is not what he inherited; it is with the misguided policies that slowed the recovery and caused millions of Americans to endure lengthy unemployment and poverty,” Romney concluded in his indictment of Obama’s four years in office.

“That is why 15 million more of our fellow citizens are on food stamps than when President Obama was sworn into office. That is why 3 million more women are now living in poverty. That is why nearly 1 in 6 Americans today is poor. That is why the economy is stagnant.”

Mitt Romney speaking in Ames, Iowa, today

‘Pursuing their dreams’

Romney began outlining his plan with an emphasis on free enterprise.

“If Paul Ryan and I are elected as your president and vice president, we will endeavor with all our hearts and energy to restore America,” he said. “Instead of more spending, more borrowing from China and higher taxes from Washington, we’ll renew our faith in the power of free people pursuing their dreams.”

Romney explained to the Ames rally his plan consists of the following five elements:

“One, we will act to put America on track to a balanced budget by eliminating unnecessary programs, by sending programs back to states where they can be managed with less abuse and less cost, and by shrinking the bureaucracy of Washington.”
“Two, we’ll produce more of the energy we need to heat our homes, fill our cars, and make our economy grow. We will stop the Obama war on coal, the disdain for oil, and the effort to crimp natural gas by federal regulation of the very technology that produces it.”
“Three, we will make trade work for America. We’ll open more markets to American agriculture, products and services. And we will finally hold accountable any nation that doesn’t play by the rules. I will stand up for the rights and interests of American workers and employers.”
“Four, we will grow jobs by making America the best possible place for job creators, for entrepreneurs, for small business, for innovators, for manufacturers. This we will do by updating and reshaping regulations to encourage growth, by lowering tax rates while lowering deductions and closing loopholes, and by making it clear from day one that unlike the current administration, we actually like business and the jobs business creates.”
:Finally, as we create more opportunity, we also will make sure that our citizens have the skills to succeed. Training programs will be shaped by the states where people live, and schools will put the interests of our kids, their parents and their teachers above the interests of the teachers’ unions.”

Romney promised that by taking these steps, the economy would come “roaring back” to create 12 million new jobs over the next four years.

He also pledged to “save and secure” Medicare and Social Security for present as well as future generations, and to restore the $716 Obama took from Medicare to fund Obamacare.

He promised to take a bi-partisan approach as president, avoiding the politics of division and demonization he accused Obama of pursuing.

“I was elected as a Republican governor in a state with a legislature that was 85-percent Democrat. We were looking at a multi-billion dollar budget gap. But instead of fighting with one another, we came together to solve our problems,” he stressed. “We actually cut spending – reduced it. We lowered taxes 19 times. We defended school choice. And we worked to make our state business friendly.”

He concluded by urging voters “to rise to the occasion,” noting he would resolve to make the century ahead “an American Century.”

Media reaction

Establishment media panned Romney’s plan.

“If you want to see how Romney’s economic policies would work out, take a look at Europe,” wrote New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. “And weep.”

Kristof argued that Republicans have praised Germany and Britain, in particular, for implementing “precisely the policies that Romney favors,” with the result that “those economies seem, to use a German technical term, kaput.”

Kristof asserted that any deviation from Obama’s current policy of deficit spending meant austerity, discounting Romney’s contention the economy can be stimulated by the type of supply-side economics that Ronald Reagan used to bring the U.S. economy out of the doldrums after Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

At the Atlantic, staff writer Molly Ball characterized Romney’s speech as “substance-free promises to make things better, punctuated by Romney’s new mantra of ‘big change.’”

CNN dismissed the speech as a repeat of attacks Romney had given on the stump at rallies in Ohio a day earlier, charging it was long on promises and short on specifics.

If the election does go to Romney as the polls currently suggest, will the pro-Obama pundits admit the president was tone-deaf to the concerns of independent voters as he promised only more of the same, while Romney took the initiative by arguing continued trillion-dollar deficits were not the way out of the nation’s economic difficulties.

Romney team eyes victory in crucial Ohio

TRAVELING WITH THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN – As Gov. Mitt Romney meets enthusiastic, overflow crowds in Ohio from Cincinnati in the south to Toledo on Lake Erie, his campaign chief sees the election shaping up much like 2004.

If Romney wins Ohio, the campaign believes, he is likely to be the next president of the United States.

At each stop, Romney supporters patiently lined up at security checkpoints to see the candidate in a race the polls still show to be neck-and-neck in Ohio. But the campaign is exuding confidence, pointing to surveys of independent voters.

“In 2008, Obama won independents, but today we are winning independent voters overwhelmingly in Ohio,” Scott Jennings, the Romney-Ryan campaign manager told WND. “And there’s no way we can win independents by 10 points and lose Ohio.”

Jennings said the campaign, sometime this week, will cross the 2 million mark in number of doors knocked on since May.

“And we’re going to make the 6 millionth voter contact,” he claimed. “We are knocking on doors in all 88 counties. We think, absolutely, this face-to-face contact is what’s going to cut through all the clutter.”

He admitted Obama has an advantage in Ohio in terms of the number of offices and campaign workers.

But he argued the Obama offices are rented, and the staff are paid, absorbing resources.

“They’ve collected a lot of rent payments and a lot of leases,” he said. “We’ve collected a lot of volunteers.”

Jennings pointed out that in 2008, Obama won the early voting by about 20 percent, but with “their erosion and our surge” the Democrats are winning the early voting by only 6 percent this year.

“I’m not going to tell you we are going to win early voting, but we’re keeping it close,” he said. “We are going to blow them out on Election Day, and that’s how we’re going to win this race.”

Jennings noted that at this point in the race in 2008, Republicans suffered “an enthusiasm problem” in Ohio.”

“This year, we don’t have an enthusiasm problem,” he said. “All over the state of Ohio, even in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, you are going to see the Republican ticket return to the kinds of margins Bush picked up in 2004.”

He expects the counties that surround Cincinnati, which are strongly Republican, to return to the 2004 margins that helped re-elected George W. Bush.

“The I-75 western corridor – that whole western column of the state – there’s a lot of red counties out there,” he said.

Jennings was equally excited about the opportunity in eastern Ohio.

“There is a lot of opportunity in the eastern part of the state, especially the southeastern part of the state, because of energy,” he said.

“Barack Obama does not like ‘in the ground’ energy,” he added. “In Ohio coal country, there’s a lot of fear about what a second Obama term would look like. We aren’t conceding any territory anywhere in the state, not even in the blue counties.”

Now into the final days of the presidential campaign, the election comes down to getting out the vote, what today is known as the “ground game.”

Here, Jennings is confident his team is beating Obama.

“Everybody senses we can win Ohio,” he insisted.

“This drives out more volunteers and more people to vote early,” he said. “Over the last two weeks, we are seeing more Republicans who voted in primaries than Democrats who voted in primaries turn in absentee ballots from Republicans than Democrats. This tracks with our polling. When we saw a ramp up in favor of Romney in the polls, we saw more Republican absentee ballots coming in.”

In the first stop of the day, Cincinnati, some 3,000 people packed into an open warehouse to hear Romney speak.

The theme, written in big letters against the podium backdrop, spelled out “JOBS” – perhaps the key concern in this year’s presidential election.

Gov. Mitt Romney at Cincinnati rally today (WND photo)

Ohio and jobs

On Wednesday, Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich warned of an economic slowdown ahead of the presidential election, exhorting Ohioans not to believe the state was in economic recovery simply because the latest Department of Labor statistics showed the state’s unemployment rate ticking down to 7 percent in September, after three consecutive months of holding steady at 7.2 percent.

There were still 406,000 unemployed Ohioans in September, a month in which the manufacturing sector lost 6,400 jobs, according to state figures. The decrease resulting primarily from losses in machinery and metal manufacturing, not from automobile manufacturing.

With an estimated one in eight Ohio jobs tied to the automobile industry, Ohio has the second-highest total automotive industry employment after Michigan.

Some 850,000 Ohio workers, many of them union workers, are being pressed by the Obama campaign to vote Democratic in thanks for the bailout of GM and Chrysler, for which the Obama administration takes credit, even though the bailout began in 2008 under George W. Bush.

In Ohio, Democrats are pounding Romney for an editorial he published in the New York Times, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” in which he argued for a court-managed bailout, without tax-payer money, even though he was not opposed to government loan guarantees after the automakers emerged from bankruptcy procedures in court.

Republicans in Ohio counter by arguing that a court-administered bankruptcy procedure is properly viewed as a restructuring, not an end to a corporation’s life. In the government restructuring of GM and Chrysler, over $25 billion in assets, many of which were held by secured lenders, were redistributed to the United Auto Workers, a union that gave 99 percent of its PAC funds to Democrats in 2008.

The closure of Delphi auto parts has hit Ohio particularly hard, with some 20,000 retirees in Ohio losing part of their pensions, including 2,000 in the Akron-Canton region of central Ohio and the Dayton region of southwestern Ohio.

With the government restructuring of GM and Chrysler, one in five car dealerships in Ohio were closed.

‘Nightmare scenario’ in Ohio

Ohio elections officials readily admit there is a nightmare scenario when it comes to early voting.

With some 7 million registered voters in Ohio, approximately 1.43 million have requested absentee ballots through Oct. 19, but only 618,861 had returned their vote by mail, USA Today reported.

The early voting rules under Ohio law could cause the nation to face an excruciatingly long process of waiting for Ohio to report, reminiscent of the Florida recount in 2000, if a large percentage of Ohio voters requesting absentee ballots change their minds and decide to vote in person.

Under Ohio law, those not returning absentee ballots will be given provisional ballots if they show up in person to vote, with the caveat that provisional ballots do not have to be counted until Nov. 17.

So, depending on how close the final vote is and on how many voters requesting absentee ballots end up getting provisional ballots because they voted in person, the nation might have to wait 11 days after the Nov. 6 election to find out who will be the next president.

Yet another secret about Obama's life

Exhibit 1: Obama nose comparison, 2006 and 1990

It’s becoming increasingly clear, just days before Barack Obama’s bid for re-election, that America still doesn’t know much about the man who has lived in the White House for the last four years.

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s challenge to Obama to release his college and passport records in exchange for a $5 million donation to Obama’s charities, here’s another secret from Obama’s life of mystery and make-believe.

Filmmaker Joel Gilbert contends President Obama has altered his facial profile for the national stage of American politics, citing two nationally known cosmetic surgery experts he consulted who concluded Obama had a “nose job.”

“It appears Obama had some aesthetic refinement,” said plastic surgeon J. David Holcolm.

Gilbert is the producer of “Dreams from My Real Father,” a documentary distributed by the millions to swing states that argues the late Communist Party USA activist Frank Marshall Davis was Obama’s biological as well as ideological father, not Barack Obama, the Kenyan, who came to Hawaii as a student in 1959.

“Obama has gone to great lengths to obscure his past,” Gilbert said. “Now, in addition to the alleged document forgery and photographic forgery by Obama to hide his true identity, we now have evidence of facial forgery.”

Holcolm described in detail his reasons for concluding Obama has had cosmetic surgery.

“The upper and middle nasal vault are both narrowed. The tip and infra-tip are softer and the tip has been rotated up,” he said. “Alar height appears to have been reduced so the lower part of the nose that makes up the nostrils appears softer.

“These changes are not characteristic of the natural aging process,” Holcolm said, “where the tip tends to settle and rotate downward causing the appearance of a longer nose and where the tip also often widens noticeably.”

Wendy Lewis, a cosmetic surgery consultant and author of 11 consumer health and beauty books, including “America’s Cosmetic Doctors & Dentists” and “Plastic Makes Perfect,” agrees.

“In the three younger photographs, Obama appears to have a bulbous nasal tip with wide alar bases, not uncommon with males and with skin of color,” Lewis said. “The more current photos show a thinner nasal tip which suggests some finessing of his nose over the years, but it is a very natural-looking effect.”

Exhibit 2: Obama nose comparison, 1990 and 2010

As WND reported, Gilbert mailed 2.7 million DVD copies of “Dreams from My Real Father” to households in Florida, Colorado and Iowa in early October. He previously sent 1.4 million DVDs to households in Ohio, Nevada, and New Hampshire.

“Dreams from My Real Father” is currently the No. 1-selling documentary on Amazon.com and is also available on Netflix streaming.

On the film’s website, Gilbert shows three comparison photographs, seen here as Exhibits 1 through 3, that first led him to suspect Obama had undergone rhinoplasty to change his appearance.

Exhibit 3: Obama nose comparison, 2002 and 2008

Gilbert suspects Obama had the surgery because he was “concerned he was looking too much like Frank Marshall Davis as he got older.”

“I don’t think it was a coincidence that Obama chose to undergo a rhinoplasty before running for U.S. Senate and facing the national spotlight,” Gilbert said. “If Obama was identified as Davis’ son, it would connect the Marxist dots of Obama’s entire life journey.”

Gilbert said Obama “needed the Kenyan father fairy tale to misdirect the public away from the fact that he is a red diaper baby, the child of a Communist Party USA propagandist and Soviet agent.”

Gilbert told WND he’s received hundreds of emails people who have received a copy of his documentary in the mail, and the main message is “good folks don’t like it when they’ve been lied to.”

Alex T. from Ohio echoed another common theme: “Your film frightened me for myself, my family and my country. When will the ignorant people realize this man is a fake and is out to destroy our Constitution and way of life?”

“The nose job may not be a bombshell story in itself,” says Joseph Farah, editor of WND. “But it’s just one more piece of evidence amid what has become a mountain range of evidence that Obama is something other than what he has pretended to be. For too long, the Obama-friendly press has systematically withheld the truth about their man and even deliberately hidden and obscured it.”

Candidates square off in last-chance debate

Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama take part in the final presidential debate of the 2012 campaign at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.

BOCA RATON, Fla. – At the final presidential debate here, President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney exchanged fire on the hot topic of foreign policy. CBS News’ Bob Schieffer moderated the third, and last, presidential debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.

The debate focused on foreign policy and was divided into six 15-minute segments: 1) America’s role in the world, 2) Afghanistan and Pakistan, 3) Israel and Iran, 4) the changing Middle East and the new face of terrorism (Part 1) 5) the changing Middle East and the new face of terrorism (Part 2) and 6) the rise of China.

With the presidential race in nearly a dead heat just two weeks before Election Day, strategists argue the final debate could prove critical. During the first presidential debate, Obama was criticized for his poor showing by his own supporters. After the second debate, which many argued was a draw, those in the legacy media dubbed Obama the winner.

“Mitt Romney was smiling, he was relaxed, he looked like a winner,” Pat Buchanan told Fox News. “Obama was frustrated it was ending not the way he wanted. You’d have to say Mitt Romney’s the winner.”

Changing Middle East and the new face of terrorism, Part 1

The debate began with the subject of Libya, the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi attack that included the murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three Americans.

In the aftermath of the attack, the Obama administration blamed an amateur anti-Islamic film, which was not the cause of the bloodshed. In an appearance on Comedy Central, Obama recently told comedian Jon Stewart the deaths of the four Americans were not “optimal.”

As he often has this election year, Obama reminded Americans that Obama bin Laden was killed under his leadership.

Romney argued that Islamic extremism “is certainly not on the run.” He said America must “help these nations create civil societies.”

Obama accused Romney of calling Russia the greatest geopolitical threat to America and accused him of wanting to import foreign policy of the 1980s.

“Every time you’ve offered an opinion, you’ve been wrong,” Obama charged, assailing Romney for his comments on withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. He said Romney’s strategy “is wrong and reckless leadership that is all over the map.”

Romney responded, “Attacking me is not an agenda. Attacking me is not dealing with the challenges we’re dealing with in the Middle East.”

He clarified that he said Russia is a geopolitical foe, and al-Qaida is the greatest threat to the nation’s security.

The two debated withdrawal timelines for troops in Iraq. Obama charged Romney with wanting to keep soldiers there.

Meanwhile, Romney has blasted Obama for his management of the humanitarian crisis in Syria as more than 30,000 civilians have been killed in the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Obama said the U.S. has mobilized sanctions against the government and “mobilized the moderate forces in Syria.”

“What we’re seeing taking place in Syria is heartbreaking,” Obama said. “[B]ut we also have to realize that for us to get more entangled in Syria is a serious step. … I’m confident that Assad’s days are numbered.”

However, he argued against “giving heavy weapons” to the opposition, and Romney agreed.

Romney said Syria’s removal of Assad is important, but America cannot be drawn into conflict there. He called for “a very effective leadership effort” and ensuring Syrians who are armed “are responsible parties.”

“We should be playing the leadership role there, not on the ground with the military,” Romney said.

Schieffer asked Romney whether he would put no-fly zones in Syria. Romney responded that he would not put the U.S. military in Syria. He said he wants to see responsible Syrians armed to defend themselves.

“This has been going on for a year,” Romney said. “This should have been a time for American leadership.”

What is America’s role in the world?

Romney said he believe that America has a responsibility of promoting freedom and free elections, but it must start by improving its own economy at home and strengthening the military for the long term. He promised to not cut the military budget and to stand by U.S. allies.

Obama touted his effort to end the war in Iraq, and he declared, “Our alliances have never been stronger.” He emphasized “rebuilding America,” improving education, slashing oil imports, developing “clean energy technologies,” and slashing spending.

Obama accused Romney of proposing “wrong and reckless policies” and supporting President George Bush.

Romney emphasized his role as a businessman who has created jobs while Obama leads a nation struggling with unemployment. He also advocated expanding development of energy resources, embracing Latin America “as a huge opportunity for us,” working to balance the budget and championing small business.

Obama chimed in, accusing Romney of failed policies for small businesses while he served as governor of Massachusetts. Then he discussed education reform and the importance of teachers in making a difference in producing a skilled workforce and promoting business creation.

Romney touted Massachusetts’ education record, which “allowed us to become the No. 1 in the nation.”

Schieffer attempted to redirect the debate to foreign policy. He asked Romney where he will get increased funding for the military.

Romney replied that he would cut discretionary spending without touching the defense budget. He promised to “get rid of Obamacare” on Day 1 and give programs such as Medicare to the states, “because states run these programs more efficiently.” He promised a balanced budget within eight to 10 years.

Obama argued that military spending has gone up every year he’s been in office.

“What you can’t do is spend $2 trillion in additional military spending … $5 trillion in tax cuts … and somehow deal with the deficit we’ve already got,” he told Romney. “The math simply doesn’t work.”

Romney touted his experience balancing budgets in business and as governor of Massachusetts.

“Our Navy is smaller now than any time since 1917. … Our Air Force is older and smaller than any time since it was founded in 1940,” Romney said. “This, in my view, is the highest responsibility of the president of the united states, which is to maintain the safety of the American people.”

Israel and Iran

On the topic of Israel, Obama called the nation “a true friend”: “I will stand with Israel if they are attacked.”

“As long as I am president of the United States, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon,” Obama declared. “… A nuclear Iran is a threat to our national security and to Israel’s national security.”

Obama emphasized his administration’s efforts to impose sanctions on Iran. He accused Romney of talking “as if we should take premature military action,” calling it a “mistake” and “a last resort.”

Romney expressed his support for Israel, culturally and militarily. He said he called for “crippling sanctions” and would have put them in place earlier. He said he would tighten those sanctions and take on diplomatic isolation efforts, ensuring Ahmadinejad is indicted.

“A military action is the last resort. It is something one would only consider if all of the other avenues have been tried to their fullest extent.”

WND broke a story last week quoting Iranian sources as saying a deal has already been brokered between high-ranking U.S. administration negotiators and a representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that calls for Iran to halt part of its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of many U.S. sanctions against the Islamic regime.

The next day, the New York Times followed up with a story reporting Obama administration officials had confirmed the U.S. and Iran had agreed to one-on-one talks in what could be “a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avert a military strike on Iran.”

During the debate, Obama denied the reports.

“The clock is ticking,” Obama said. “We aren’t going to allow Iran to engage in talks that are going nowhere.”

Romney argued that the talks with Iran have not been effective, and the job of the U.S. president is “to show strength.” He reemphasized tightened sanctions and increased diplomatic pressure.

Obama claimed Iran is at its weakest point in many years. “We’ll continue to keep the pressure on to make sure they do not get a nuclear weapon,” he said.

But Romney charged: “We’re four years closer to a nuclear Iran.”

He reminded Obama that he flew to Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other nations – except Israel – on an “apology tour,” saying America had been divisive and dictatorial toward other nations.

Schieffer asked Romney, “What if the prime minister of Israel called you on the phone and said, ‘Our bombers are on the way, we’re going to bomb Iran.”

Romney argued that his relationship is stronger with Israel and that he would never receive such a call. He cited numerous foreign policy concerns and declared, “I don’t see our influence growing around the world. I see our influence receding.”

Obama accused Romney of being “all over the map” on foreign policy, saying the governor once opposed a timetable in Afghanistan and advocated increased American presence in Iraq.

He once again touted his administration’s efforts to capture Osama bin Ladin, saying, “It was worth moving heaven and earth to get him.”

America’s longest war: Afghanistan and Pakistan

On the topic of bringing troops home from Afghanistan, Schieffer asked, “What do you do if the deadline arrives and it is obvious the Afghans are unable to handle their security? Do we still leave?”

Romney promised to have American troops home by 2014.

Obama added that America has met many of its objectives and that “there’s no reason why Americans should die when Afghans are perfectly capable of defending their own country.”

“After a decade at war, it’s time to do some nation building here at home,” he said.

Schieffer turned to Romney and pointed out that Americans continue to die at the hands of groups supported by Pakistan.

The nation still provides safe haven to terrorists, though the U.S. gives it billions of dollars in aid.

But Romney warned that it’s not time to “divorce” a nation with nuclear weapons.

“If it becomes a failed state, there are nuclear weapons there, and you’ve got terrorists there that could get their hands on nuclear weapons.”

Asked about his position on drones, Romney said he supports the use of such technology to “go after the people who present a threat to our nation.”

With regard to foreign conflicts, Obama argued that America has “stood on the side of democracy.”

He asserted, “Al-Qaida is much weaker than it was when I came into office.”

Rise of China

Schieffer asked the candidates, “What do you believe is the greatest threat to national security?”

Obama focused primarily on China, saying his administration has insisted that China “play by the rules” on international trade.

“We’ve brought more cases against China for violating trade rules than the previous administration did in two terms,” Obama argued.

He touted his administration’s success in stopping China from flooding the U.S. with defective tires.

However, Romney emphatically argued, “The greatest national security threat America faces is a nuclear Iran.”

He also stressed “trade relations with China that work for us.”

Romney said he would hold China accountable and label the nation as a currency manipulator. Schieffer interjected, asking him if he thought he might spark a trade war by doing so.

But Romney argued that there’s already a trade war, because “we have an enormous trade imbalance.” He said China cannot keep holding down the value of its currency, stealing America’s intellectual property and continuing to “roll all over us.”

However, Obama attacked Romney, saying the GOP candidate will not get tough on China and accusing him of outsourcing jobs. He said U.S. exports to China have doubled and currencies are at their most advantageous to exporters since 1993.

“We believe China can be a partner,” Obama said, “but we’re also sending a very clear signal that America is a Pacific power, that we are going to have a presence there.”

Romney refuted Obama’s charge that he would support sending jobs overseas or hurt the U.S. auto industry by liquidating it. He blasted Obama for pumping taxpayer money into private companies rather than allowing the companies to proceed through bankruptcy.

Closing statements

In his closing statement, Obama once again charged Romney with promoting “reckless” foreign policy.

“I’ve got a different vision for America,” Obama declared. “I want to build on our strengths.”

He emphasized putting Americans back to work, developing energy resources, reducing the deficit by cutting spending and “asking the wealthy to do a little bit more.”

Obama promised to maintain the “strongest military in the world” and “work every single day to make sure America continues to be the greatest nation on earth.”

Romney declared that America has an “opportunity for real leadership” and must make Americans confident that their future is secure.

He warned that the nation will follow the path of Greece under a second Obama administration.

Romney promised to balance the budget and “get people back to work with 12 million new jobs.”

“Washington is broken,” Romney declared. “I know what it takes to get this country back.”

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Romney team mum on surge in polls

TRAVELING WITH THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN – Romney campaign officials have been surprisingly mum on the candidate’s recent surge in the polls, which continues despite a general consensus among establishment media that Obama won the second debate.

Yesterday, the Romney team quietly prepared the candidate to gently deliver well-timed zings at President Obama during the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner in New York City last night, in effect magnifying the impact of Obama’s own self-effacing humor.

From the inside, the Romney campaign has more the feel of a professionally run, initial-public-offering road tour conducted by top Wall Street investment bankers than of a traditional presidential political campaign in which political operatives – for whom it’s just the next in a series of presidential campaigns – jawbone the traveling press about how well this season’s party candidate is doing.

Gallup’s national daily tracking poll of registered voters had Romney up 52 to 45 yesterday and 51 to 45 today.

Today, the Romney motorcade battled afternoon, midtown New York City traffic and contended with drivers of varying skill levels on the New Jersey Turnpike to arrive at Newark Airport with only a 15-minute delay.

Instead of being overly confident, the Romney brain trust seems prepared for a David Axelrod-managed Obama campaign to utilize fully the abundant power of the presidency to stage a game-changing event on the eve of the third and last presidential debate. The topic Monday night in Boca Raton, Fla., will be foreign policy.

At the Newark airport, Romney emerged from his SUV looking relaxed, dressed comfortably in jeans and a light, collared dress shirt.

On the tarmac, he met with about a dozen volunteers and police officers.

Romney shook hands and posed for group and individual pictures before boarding the campaign airplane.

Settled onboard, the Romney team took off for an early evening rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., with country music star John Rich serving as the warm-up act. The event drew 8,500 enthusiastic Romney-Ryan supporters.

Tomorrow, the Romney team heads to Boca Raton to settle in for two intensive days of closed-door debate preparation.

Like IPO investment bankers ever aware that a market can turn unexpectedly against their corporate client, the Romney team is not expecting the Obama administration’s current problems with its troubled narrative on the Benghazi terrorist attack to persist.

The lesson learned from the Benghazi terrorist attack is more than how poorly the Obama team responded to an event that threw into disarray its narrative that killing Osama bin Laden had put al-Qaida to run in a Middle East in which it had positioned the U.S. as a friend, and democracy was taking hold following an Arab Spring overthrow of dictators.

The real lesson appears to be that in a campaign in which foreign policy was not an issue before the murder of Ambassador Stevens, the Obama administration may yet be able to shift the tide with an October-Surprise move before the Boca Raton debate.

Indeed, reports coming from Libya name Ahmed Abu Khattala, the leader of the Benghazi-based radical Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia, as the commander of the terrorist attack that killed Stevens.

A drone strike on Abu Khattala by a determined Obama administration would likely score political points a little more than two weeks before Election Day, Nov. 6.

Yet rarely is the Middle East so simple.

Romney campaign at Daytona Beach International Airport tonight (WND photo)

WND has reported the operation of a second militia in the not-completely-told story of the Benghazi terrorist attack – the Libya Shield Brigade, which like Ansar al-Shariah, is known to operate under the black flag of jihad.

Certainly, Abu Khattala did not command the Libya Shield Brigade in addition to Ansar al-Shariah.

Then too, WND has also identified Mohammad Abdullah Aqil, a wealthy and corrupt operator of a Mercedes car dealership in Tripoli, as the principal funder of a resurgent al-Qaida in Tripoli and Abdul Hakem Belhaj, the brother of al-Qaida No. 2 leader Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was killed in a Obama administration-ordered drone attack in Pakistan, as likely suspects in the Benghazi attack.

With Aqil and Belhaj yet alive behind the scenes, the drone-assassination of Khattala would at most be a moderate setback to a growing al-Qaida organization in Libya in which dozens of replacements must be chomping at the bit for their moment of glory leading a jihad brigade into battle.

A well-prepared Romney must be able to anticipate such a development, communicating during the foreign policy debate that the question before the American public is not whether this or that al-Qaida leader in Libya is eliminated in a revenge killing, but why the Obama administration left its ambassador insufficiently protected, believing mistakenly that the Obama doctrine of appeasing radical Islamic terrorists in the Middle East had succeeded.

Nor is Libya the only venue for a Middle East October Surprise.

WND has also reported the Obama administration has cut a last-minute deal with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran in which it will work to ease economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for an agreement to halt uranium enrichment, at least temporarily.

The Romney team has to anticipate that Yukiya Amano, the current director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, might end up, as WND reports, in Tehran Monday morning to announce a top-level accord personally negotiated by White House adviser Valerie Jarrett has been signed.

Here, Romney must counter that, as positive as such a deal may appear, the history of Iran is long on negotiating and short on delivering a meaningful cessation to a nuclear program developing on overdrive.

With his quip at the Al Smith dinner associating Obama administration domestic policy, in true Sesame Street fashion, with the letter “O” and “16 trillion,” the Romney team kept the spotlight on Obama administration economic policy failures.

The task will be to find an equally skillful way to achieve the same effect Monday evening when the subject is foreign policy.

That, Romney campaign spokesmen insist, is the reason the Republican nominee is traveling to Boca Raton early – not to enjoy the beach and sun as fall weather rapidly takes hold, but to use every possible remaining hour to prepare to counter a yet resilient and powerful U.S. president on foreign policy.

Confident Romney camp builds on momentum

TRAVELING WITH THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN – An exceptionally upbeat and confident Romney camp left the second presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., to hold two enthusiastic, overflow outdoor rallies in Virginia.

Romney left his hotel in Long Island at 9:30 a.m. Eastern yesterday accompanied by comedian Dennis Miller, who planned to join the Republican nominee at the Virginia rallies.

From all appearances, the Romney campaign – bolstered by a new Gallup poll putting the Republican nominee over the crucial 50-percent mark with just three weeks to go – is a smoothly run operation, with a corporate feel in which meetings and rallies are held on time, contingencies are taken into account and efficient staffers are responsive to media needs and requests.

In a 36-minute drive on the closed Northern State Parkway and the Long Island Expressway, the campaign’s motorcade was greeted by appreciative horn honks from cars heading the opposite direction.

Arriving in Virginia, Miller joined Romney in his SUV for the trip to the first rally.

At 1:15 p.m., Romney spoke at a Chesapeake Victory Rally, following a warm-up by country-music star Lee Greenwood, known for his patriotic anthem “God Bless the USA.”

See video of the Cheaspeake, Va., rally:

From there, the Romney campaign, along with Miller, traveled to Leesburg, Va., for a second rally, this time with Andy Griggs providing the opening country-music warm-up.

See video of the Leesburg, Va., rally:

According to Secret Service counts, 3,500 cheering Romney fans attended the Chesapeake rally, with some 8,000 standing in the cool evening air to see the candidate in-person in Leesburg.

“We’re going to win Virginia!” Romney told both audiences, to strong applause.

He adapted his stump speech to include highlights from the second debate that advanced his attacks on Obama.

“It’s interesting that with two presidential debates done, the president still hasn’t found an agenda for his second term,” Romney said. “We have an agenda for our term, and our agenda is going to get this country working again.”

Romney campaign plane (WND photo)

Romney attacked Obama’s record over the last four years, asking both rallies why the president thought the next four years would be any different if he were re-elected.

“Obama seems to spend most of the time in the debates arguing why my plans won’t work. I wish he would spend a little more time explaining why his plans have not worked,” Romney chided Obama.

“We have one more weekend before the next debate, and I hope Obama will spend some time figuring out what he would do if he got another four years. But that’s not likely to happen, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Romney stressed that if elected, he would focus on creating jobs as the first priority.

“The president’s policies are running on fumes,” Romney said, charging the Obama administration with an energy policy that has resulted in higher energy prices, including higher prices for gasoline at the pump. “It’s time to get this country moving again.”

In both rallies, Romney hit hard Obama’s annual trillion-dollar deficits since taking office, with no prospect in sight for reducing continuing deficits.

He suggested Obama would have no choice but to increase taxes, including for the middle class, should Obama win a second term in office.

Polls show Romney taking a 52-45 lead over Obama, reversing gaps of 10 points or more in key swing states since the first debate. The dramatic shift indicates the Democratic Party strategy of having Vice President Joe Biden take a more argumentative approach in his debate against Republican challenger Paul Ryan did not help make up any ground.

Today, the Romney campaign traveled to New York City to prepare for the 67th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner at the Waldorf Hotel.

Tomorrow, the campaign plans to travel to Florida, where the candidate will once again closet himself with top advisers to prepare for the third and final presidential debate Monday in Boca Raton.