As Obama campaigns, jobs numbers sure to set tone

[July 06, 2012]  AKRON, Ohio (AP) -- The presidential campaign is pressing into the heat of summer just as the government issues new jobless numbers that will define the state of the economy and the political contest four months from Election Day.

President Barack Obama on Friday continues an up-close-and-personal bus tour of Ohio and Pennsylvania, two hotly contested states, eager to leverage their modest economic successes into a case for his re-election. He is dishing out handshakes and hugs before the cameras, hitting neighborhoods that feel a long way from official Washington and touting his achievements.

"We saved an auto industry. That saved hundreds of thousands of jobs here in Ohio," Obama said in an interview with NBC affiliate WLWT in Cincinnati that was aired Friday. "We passed a health care law that's going to mean security for Ohioans."

Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger, remained at his New Hampshire vacation home as speculation turns to the selection of his running mate and the possibility his list could include a woman.

Obama questioned Romney's motives on health care in the same interview, accusing his rival of caving under pressure from conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh for saying that requiring all Americans to buy health insurance amounts to a tax.

Romney said Wednesday the Supreme Court ruled the requirement to buy health insurance was a tax, which amounted to a shift in his position. Earlier in the week, senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney viewed the mandate as a penalty, a fee or a fine -- not a tax.

"So the question becomes, are you doing that because of politics?" Obama said. "Are you abandoning a principle that you fought for, for six years simply because you're getting pressure for two days from Rush Limbaugh or some critics in Washington?"

Obama said presidents learn that "what you say matters and your principles matter. And sometimes, you've got to fight for things that you believe in and you can't just switch on a dime."

The jobless numbers promised to command attention Friday and determine the nature of the political debate. The unemployment and hiring figures provide monthly milestones with which to measure the human toll of the weak economic recovery. Economists were predicting 90,000 jobs were added last month, more than in May but still not enough to dent the 8.2 percent unemployment rate.

A bad employment report could damage the public's already wavering economic confidence. The percentage of people in an Associated Press-GfK poll last month that said the economy got better in the past month fell below 20 percent for the first time since fall. And few said they expected much improvement in the unemployment rate in the coming year.

Romney has not been able to exploit that sentiment fully. In national polls, the president either retains a slight edge or is in a statistical tie with his challenger.

The economic data continued to provide a mixed picture of the recovery. Weekly unemployment benefit applications dropped last week to the lowest number since the week of May 19. At the same time, retailers recorded tepid sales in June. And a report last week said U.S. manufacturing shrank in June for the first time in nearly three years, undermining a top Obama talking point.

In selecting Ohio and Pennsylvania for his two-day bus tour, Obama began a more retail-oriented phase of his campaign in two battleground states that have had better economic experiences than other parts of the country. Both states had unemployment rates of 7.3 percent in May, well below the national average of 8.2 percent.

Friday's schedule includes a stop at an elementary school in Poland, Ohio, near Youngstown, followed by a speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Kicking off his two-state, 250-mile bus tour in Maumee in the northern Ohio suburbs, Obama said he "refused to turn my back on communities like this one."

Romney, from his family lake home in New Hampshire, criticized Obama for offering "no new answers" on the economy.

Quick to counter Obama's message, Republicans dispatched former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, two potential vice presidential nominees, to argue Romney's case in some of the same towns Obama was visiting.

"We should all bet on the country, but we shouldn't double down on Barack Obama," Pawlenty said Thursday. "He's had his chance. It's not working."

[Associated Press; By BEN FELLER]

Associated Press Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Ken Thomas in Washington contributed to this report.

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