America the Gutted: Wooing the middle class voter (VIDEO)
Democratic presidential candidate, US President Barack Obama speaks on stage as he accepts the nomination for president during the final day of the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena on September 6, 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
BOSTON — Think Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney would like some middle class votes come November?
What about President Barack Obama?
Swing states like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and others are full of these key voters, of course.
Each place is thick with former manufacturing and other middle class workers, many of whom have struggled mightily over the past decade, to say nothing of the past four difficult years.
They're a key voting bloc that is eager for solutions from either party, and both candidates are — naturally — happy to oblige.
Check out this video clip from Mitt Romney's Sept. 5 appearance on Fox News, where he mentions the phrase "middle class" three times in about 45 seconds.
President Obama, of course, has made the middle class a centerpiece of his re-election campaign.
His references to middle class economic issues are getting some of the biggest cheers out on the campaign trail.
Here's a sample of what President Obama had to say on the subject during his Sept. 6 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina — another key state where many former middle class workers are suffering:
"You can choose a future where we reduce our deficit without sticking it to the middle class."
This next one celebrates middle class values, while taking subtle aim at rising anger against economic inequality:
"Ours is a fight to restore the values that built the largest middle class and the strongest economy the world has ever known — the values my grandfather defended as a soldier in Patton's army, the values that drove my grandmother to work on a bomber assembly line while he was gone. They knew they were part of something larger — a nation that triumphed over fascism and depression, a nation where the most innovative businesses turn out the world's best products, and everyone shared in that pride and success from the corner office to the factory floor."
Here's President Obama's full speech: