Obama, Romney battle on economy

Candidates swap charges on China, jobs. Both campaigns target working-class voters in key battleground states.

WASHINGTON — Competing for working-class voters, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney squared off Saturday on China and accused each other of backing policies that would move American jobs overseas as the U.S. economy struggles to recover.

“In 2008, candidate Obama promised to take China ‘to the mat,’” Romney said in his weekly podcast. “But since then, he’s let China run all over us.”

Obama’s team, in turn, argued that Romney, as former head of an investment firm, has profited from, and outsourced jobs to, China. The president also rolled out a new ad campaign that casts Romney as risky for the nation’s recovery and features former President Bill Clinton saying: “They want to go back to the same old policies that got us in trouble in the first place.”

Seven weeks before Election Day, both candidates took a rare break from campaigning even as they intensified their efforts on the economy.

The maneuvering came as a new poll showed Romney having lost his long-held advantage on the economy to the president on that key topic, though the overall contest remains tight.

For Romney, emphasizing China was a way to refocus his campaign on voters’ No. 1 issue after a difficult week dominated by foreign policy in the wake of attacks on U.S. embassies in the Middle East. The shift to China also indicated Romney’s need to shore up support among the working-class voters he needs to turn out in big numbers come November.

Obama’s campaign said it welcomed the fight on China, an issue where it argues Romney has numerous vulnerabilities. It released a new web video Saturday in which Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said Romney holds investments in Chinese companies and that he outsourced jobs to China while running the private equity firm Bain Capital.

China — and through it the economy — has become Romney’s core argument as he woos voters in battleground states. It’s the only ad Romney’s campaign was running over the weekend in the eight states likely to decide the election: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina.

Polls in several of the most contested states show the president with a slight edge, and suggest he has closed the gap with Romney on economic issues.

Democrats say Obama has gained an advantage in part because Romney hasn’t laid out specific plans for what he would do differently on the economy. And they see signs that voters, even those who say their economic situation isn’t better today, believe it will improve in a year or two, making it more likely they’ll want to stick with Obama.

Romney’s advisers say Obama hasn’t done anything to change the dynamic on the economy and claim any Obama gains are in states that would back the president in the fall, anyway.

Republican outside groups acknowledge Obama has gotten a burst of support across the board, including on the economy, since his convention wrapped up just over a week ago. But they insist the race is still within reach or statistically tied in key states and nationally.