2 chase winning votes to end

Obama, Romney call turnout key to victory

President Barack Obama greets supporters Monday after speaking at a campaign event near the state Capitol in Madison, Wis.

President Barack Obama greets supporters Monday after speaking at a campaign event near the state Capitol in Madison, Wis.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

— President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney made last-minute pleas for votes Monday, employing their last vestiges of energy, celebrity boosters and plenty of jet fuel to encourage every supporter and the few remaining undecided voters to tip the 2012 election in their favor.

National polls on the eve of Election Day showed a neck-and-neck race. But the winner is determined by which man gets 270 electoral votes, and Obama had more paths to get there.

Ohio looms large in both candidates’ victory plans - it was the only state both candidates were visiting Monday. And Romney’s campaign announced in the afternoon that the GOP nominee would go back on Election Day for a rally in the Cleveland area. Romney also planned a stop today in the Pittsburgh area.

The incumbent and the challenger, both fighting weariness, closed by arguing they could do more to lead the country out of the tough economic times that dominated Obama’s term.

Romney projected optimism as he neared the end of his six-year quest for the presidency. “This nation is going to begin to change for the better tomorrow,” Romney said.

“The same course we’re on isn’t going to lead to a better destination. The same course we’re on is going to lead to $20 billion in debt,” Romney told a cheering crowd of more than 8,000 people at George Mason University. “Unless we change course, we also may be looking at another recession.”

photo

AP

Mitt Romney greets supporters at a Virginia campaign rally at Lynchburg Regional Airport in Lynchburg.

Obama told nearly 20,000 people who filled the street in front of the Wisconsin capital building, “Our work is not yet done.”

Both men campaigned in states they needed to win. Romney was in Florida, Virginia and New Hampshire, while Obama was trying to protect Wisconsin from a late-breaking GOP challenge before heading to Iowa.

Both candidates planned to be on the ground in Columbus, Ohio, in the evening for dueling rallies several hours and seven miles apart. The state has gone for the winner in every presidential election since 1964.

While Romney added more campaigning today, Obama spokesman Jen Psaki said the president would stay in Chicago for his election night rally and reach swing state voters through a series of radio and television interviews.

Both candidates also were hoping to benefit from some star power. Romney planned a final rally Monday in New Hampshire with Kid Rock, while country-rock group The Marshall Tucker Band was joining him in Columbus.Obama had actors Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Rock doing urban-radio interviews, Mad Men star Jon Hamm making calls in Colorado, rapper Jay-Z joining him in Columbus and rock legend Bruce Springsteen as his traveling warm-up act.

“He promised me a ride on Air Force One,” Springsteen said, strumming his guitar as he made a political pitch between songs.

The rivals planned to appeal to pro football fans in the eleventh hour, taping interviews with ESPN’s Chris Berman that aired during halftime of the Monday Night Football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New Orleans Saints.

Both candidates predicted the election winner would be determined by which of their operations could get the most supporters to the polls. “This is going to be a turnout election,” the president declared in an interview broadcast early Monday as he pleaded with urban radio listeners to get to the polls.

On the edge of an airport runway in Lynchburg, Va., Romney called on his supporters to “make sure we get everyone we know out to vote on Election Day.” “Every single vote,” he said, speaking within view of Liberty University and after its chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. rallied the conservative faithful in the crowd.

“I will lead us out of this economic crisis by implementing pro-growth policies that will create 12 million new jobs. With your help, I will deliver real change and a real recovery. America will be strong again.”

Obama raised the possibility of defeat as he pleaded with listeners of The Rickey Smiley Morning Show to get to the polls. “If we don’t turn out the vote, we could lose a lot of the gains we’ve already made,” Obama said.

It was one of two of the president’s radio interviews airing Monday aimed at turning out minority-group voters, the other with a Spanish language station in Ohio. The president is relying on black and Hispanic voters to help offset Romney’s lead with white men in particular, but the risk for him is that some of those key supporters aren’t as motivated to vote as they were in 2008.

“Four years ago, we had incredible turnout and I know people were excited and energized about the prospect of making history,” Obama said. “We have to preserve the gains we’ve made and keep moving forward.”

Presenting himself as the candidate of “real change,” Obama reprised his philosophy of using government to equalize Americans’ prospects of success and cited accomplishments including the bailout of the auto industry, health-care expansion, more regulation of Wall Street, the death of Osama bin Laden and a shift toward clean energy.

By Monday, the most expensive general election in U.S. history, with campaign spending estimated at more than $3 billion, was winding down. In some states, political commercials were airing at a rate of more than 50,000 spots a day, according to media-tracking data. In some places, indeed, there was no more room on the air.

So, without ad slots to buy, conservative groups began placing commercials in deepblue states such as California and New York.

Obama dispatched former President Bill Clinton to Pennsylvania on Monday to keep the state in his column.First lady Michelle Obama went south to North Carolina and Florida, while Vice President Joe Biden made a final reach in Virginia.

Romney running mate Paul Ryan was covering the most ground, flying to Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Biden said Romney and Ryan are like kids “trying to outrun their shadow.”

“But they don’t know, the only time their shadow catches up with them, when the sun goes down. It’s going down tomorrow night for them,” he said.

If Romney wins, he would become the nation’s 45th president, and spend the fall and winter preparing to move into the White House and take over the executive branch of the government. There would be Cabinet secretaries to select, news conferences to hold, intelligence briefings to attend.

The hunt for swing voters Monday was so concentrated that Biden and Romney crossed paths in northern Virginia, the vice president’s motorcade pulling past Romney’s plane on the tarmac at Dulles International Airport as the GOP nominee prepared to leave the aircraft.Stopping for lunch at Mimi’s Cafe in nearby Sterling, Va., Biden confidently predicted: “It’s all over but the shouting.”

Ann Romney, who has appeared onstage with her husband at several events during the final campaign stretch, received a burst of applause from the crowd in a Washington, D.C., suburb when she asked, “Are we going to be neighbors soon?”

About 30 million people had already voted in 34 states and the District of Columbia, either by mail or in person, although no ballots were to be counted until today.

The presidency aside, there are 33 Senate seats on the ballot Tuesday, and every House seat is on the line.

Meanwhile, Democrats appealed to federal courts in Ohio - for clarification on last-minute rules imposed by the Republican secretary of state on voters who cast provisional ballots, generally used by those whose eligibility is in question - and in Florida, where long lines risk turning voters away. The actions leave open the possibility of further disputes that could last through Election Day.

Republicans say they are concerned with preventing voter fraud, while Democrats argue they are working to protect voting rights.

Information for this article was contributed by Nedra Pickler, Kasie Hunt, Jim Kuhnhenn, Julie Pace, Ken Thomas, Stephen Ohlemacher, Matthew Daly and Steve Peoples of The Associated Press; by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, John McCormick, Lisa Lerer, Margaret Talev, Mark Niquette, Michael C. Bender, Jonathan D. Salant and James Rowley of Bloomberg News; by Michael A. Memoli of Tribune Washington Bureau; and by David A. Farenthold, Jenna Johnson, Steve Hendrix, Emily Heil, Craig Timberg, David Nakamura, Philip Rucker, Dan Eggen, Felicia Sonmez and Bill Turque of The Washington Post.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/06/2012