Obama, Romney press on in final 100 hours

The final 100 hours of the U.S. presidential campaign called for President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney to be in nearly constant motion. Obama was scheduled to spend all Friday in Ohio, considered the most coveted prize for the candidates, and would likely return to the Buckeye State at least once more before Tuesday's election. Romney was to spend most of the day in Ohio too, then go to Colorado Saturday before traveling to Pennsylvania Sunday in his quest for an upset there. Obama was to campaign in Ohio Friday at the county fairgrounds in Hilliard, north of Columbus, then at a high school in Springfield, west of Columbus, and then at a high school in Lima, between Dayton and Toledo, the White House said. Romney was to begin the day with a rally at a state fair park in West Allis, Wis., near Milwaukee, then fly to a mining and construction equipment company in Etna, Ohio, near Columbus, and then finish the day with a rally billed as having nearly 100 top surrogates at a recently built town square in West Chester, near Cincinnati. Obama -- who paused his campaigning as Hurricane Sandy moved up the East Coast -- kicked off a two-day, four-state tour Thursday at an airport rally in Green Bay, Wis. "In the closing weeks of this campaign, Governor Romney has been using all his talents as a salesman to dress up these very same policies that failed our country so badly," Obama said. Later, in Las Vegas, he drew on the Hurricane Sandy devastation to frame his pitch for bipartisan cooperation and a robust government role in society. "It reminds us that when disaster strikes, we see America at its best," Obama said. "All the petty differences that consume us in normal times somehow melt away. There are no Democrats or Republicans in a storm -- just fellow Americans." Obama had spent the day before touring demolished New Jersey coastal communities with Republican Gov. Chris Christie, normally a strong critic of the president. Christie thanked Obama for their "great working relationship" and said Obama "sprung into action immediately." Christie earlier praised Obama's storm response as "outstanding," adding, "He deserves my praise, and he will get it regardless of what the calendar says." On Thursday, Michael Bloomberg, independent mayor of ravaged New York City, endorsed Obama after earlier suggesting he wouldn't endorse either candidate. The destruction inflicted by Hurricane Sandy "brought the stakes of next Tuesday's presidential election into sharp relief," Bloomberg wrote in an op-ed for Bloomberg View, part of the news and information empire he owns. Bloomberg said he decided over the past several days Obama was the better candidate to tackle the global climate change that Bloomberg said might have contributed to the violent storm, which took the lives of at least 38 New Yorkers and caused billions of dollars in damage. Romney -- who like the president had paused his campaign, but for one day less, and avoided attacks on Obama Wednesday -- depicted Obama Thursday as an enemy of free enterprise who is more interested in making political attacks than reviving the economy. "He's been looking for an agenda to carry forward in the campaign," Romney said in Doswell, Va. "He got very anxious and went out there and just attacked me, day in and day out. Attacking me does not create an agenda for him." In Roanoke, Va., Romney derided the president for proposing a Cabinet-level post devoted to business development. Obama discussed the idea in an MSNBC interview shown Monday. "I don't think adding a new chair in his Cabinet will help add millions of jobs on Main Street," Romney told a crowd at a family-owned factory. "We need a president who understands business, and I do." Republican strategist Karl Rove predicted Thursday Romney would win the election with at least 279 electoral votes. In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, Rove said the GOP presidential nominee was ahead at every level of the numbers game, "from polling data to early voting." "Sometime after the cock crows on the morning of Nov. 7, Mitt Romney will be declared America's 45th president," Rove wrote. "Let's call it 51 percent to 48 percent, with Mr. Romney carrying at least 279 Electoral College votes, probably more." A candidate must receive an absolute majority of 270 electoral votes to win the election.