GLEN ALLEN, Va. — Standing in a downpour with hundreds of rain-soaked supporters, a drenched President Obama delivered a familiar speech Saturday to key swing voters: That he has much more in common with the middle class than Republican Mitt Romney.
Though it was nearly identical to his remarks just 24 hours earlier in Virginia Beach, the image of Obama sopping wet along with supporters was not lost on the crowd.
“He’s unflappable,” said Erica Farrell of Richmond. “His message just resonates with people. It would be interesting to see Mitt Romney try to do this in the rain.”
The event at the historic Walkerton Tavern & Gardens — where wounded Union cavalry were reportedly housed in Confederate Virginia — was the fourth of Obama’s five stops during an aggressive two-day swing through Old Dominion, a key battleground state.
If Obama wants to carry Virginia again as he did in 2008, he, like the Union soldiers, will have to find friendly ground in a state that more often than not has voted for the Republican presidential candidate over the last 50 years.
Even as an incumbent with more than three years in office, Obama attempted to distance himself from gridlock in the nation’s capital, hoping to recapture the outsider aura of his 2008 campaign.
“We have the solutions in front of us,” Obama said. “What’s holding us back is we’ve got a stalemate in Washington.”
Still, Obama took credit for the few successes that emerged from some of Washington’s most partisan battles. He lauded health care reform as a significant achievement and cited substantial budget cuts as evidence that he was rolling back spending.
“I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work,” Obama said. “We’ve already cut a trillion dollars worth of spending that we don’t need.”
Obama also stopped at a Fairfax County high school in Northern Virginia. On Monday, he’ll head to Ohio, another critical battleground.
The president has focused his recent campaign forays on taxes, hailing his own proposal for a middle class tax cut while claiming Romney’s tax policies favor the rich.
Republicans countered that the president failed in his first term to correct the nation’s economic problems and is instead trying to divide the country in hopes of winning reelection.
“Today was a far cry from the candidate Obama of 2008,” said Pete Snyder, chairman of the Virginia GOP Victory Committee. “Today, he rattled off a million and one excuses and it was all about divide and conquer.”
