WESTERVILLE, Ohio (AP) — The presidential campaign is about choices involving the economy, health care and college education and a promise kept to bring troops home from Iraq and keep the country secure, Michelle Obama said Tuesday at the first of two campaign stops in battleground Ohio.
Mrs. Obama told a crowd of around 2,000 at a suburban Columbus high school gymnasium that the country must decide whether to go forward with the initiatives her husband has undertaken or let the progress slip away.
She said the country is better off because of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the return of troops from Iraq and the auto bailout.
“These are the choices that we face,” Mrs. Obama said. “Are we going to continue to change with regard to the progress that we’ve made, or are we just going to let everything we’ve worked so hard for just slip away? We can’t do that — we have to keep moving forward, forward.”
But Mrs. Obama cautioned that change can take time, and it might not even happen right away.
“Maybe not in our lifetimes, but maybe in our children’s lifetimes, maybe in our grandchildren’s lifetimes,” she said. “Because in the end, that is what this is all about. In the end, that’s what elections are always about. Elections are always about hopes, about hopes we want to leave for the next generation.”
Obama later paid an unannounced visit to the Westerville Community Center, where she smiled and laughed with children having their faces painted, playing games, and preparing to go up or come down a climbing wall.
The first lady’s interactions with the children included quizzing them, hugging them, and jumping into a game involving a round nylon blanket raised up and down as children ran beneath it. One young girl placed her hand over her mouth in happy shock after shaking Obama’s hand.
Obama took photos with the children and recreation staff before heading out.
Ohio is a must-win state for President Barack Obama, but he has also had to tread carefully as unemployment has fallen under Republican Gov. John Kasich.
The battleground state has been visited several times by both presidential candidates in the last few weeks. The president and Vice President Joe Biden both made stops last week, and Republican challenger Mitt Romney made three stops in Ohio on Wednesday.
The first lady planned a second rally later Tuesday at the convention center in Dayton.
