TOUGH LOVE
President asks for patience in difficult times
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — His hold on the White House in doubt, President Barack Obama Thursday pleaded for patience in fixing the economy, reminded voters that Osama bin Laden was killed on his orders and belittled his GOP rivals for embodying an “era of blundering and blustering.”
“I won’t pretend the path I’m of- fering is quick or easy. I never have. You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth,” Obama said in a speech that closed out the final night of a star-studded, emotional Democratic National Convention.
“And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades. It will require common effort, shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one.”
Gone from Obama’s acceptance repertoire were the grandiosity and the garish Greek columns that were flourishes when he was nominated president by Democrats in 2008, fill- ing a Denver stadium with 80,000 supporters on a promise of hope and change.
In their place Thursday came acknowledgments that the economy has stubbornly spun in place despite the president’s best efforts.
Republican Mitt Romney has targeted Obama’s hope-and-change theme from four years ago as empty rhetoric, with continuing job losses and stagnant wages serving as proof that living standards in America haven’t improved in any way after four years of an Obama White House.
But in the first of many swipes at Romney and running mate Paul Ryan, the president attacked his “friends at the Republican conven- tion” who focused on the ills of America without offering any workable, clear or even coherent solutions.
“Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!” Obama said, drawing one of the night’s biggest laughs in the convention hall.
Building on that, the president and surrogates, including Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, underscored the president’s successes, insisting his policies have spared the nation from a far worse fate than the persistent high unemployment and sluggish job growth that has plagued the economy.
“America has turned the corner!” Biden yelled, drawing a roar.
Of his running mate, Biden said, “This man has courage in his soul, compassion in his heart and steel in his spine.”
Speaker after speaker pointed to Obama saving the auto industry from financial ruin, delivering on his promise of affordable health care and preventing a collapse of the banking industry.
Obama also portrayed himself as a president who kept his promises in delivering a series of foreign-policy successes, including withdrawing troops from Iraq, driving out Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and giving Navy SEALs the go-ahead to gun down Osama bin Laden.
“In a world of new threats and new challenges, you can choose