Romney back on economy in campaign's home stretch

Mitt Romney began to lay out his closing arguments in his knife-edge campaign to oust President Barack Obama on Friday, vowing "new, bold changes" and an end to economic stagnation. With just over 10 days to go until polling day, Romney spent a third straight day in the country's Midwest, where he has been addressing large crowds and mocking Obama's "incredibly shrinking campaign."  Obama had also been in the region on Thursday, seeking to shore up a firewall against Romney who has drawn ahead of the incumbent in national polls but still trails the president in key toss-up states. On Friday, the Republican challenger headed to Iowa, where he was to give a speech on the economy just as the government released data showing growth picking up steam in the third quarter, reaching an annual pace of 2.0 percent. While small, the rate was a little better than expected, but Romney called it "discouraging," saying growth was less than half what had been predicted by the White House when it passed the 2009 stimulus bill."Slow economic growth means slow job growth and declining take-home pay. This is what four years of President Obama's policies have produced," he said, in a statement. "Americans are ready for change -- for growth, for jobs, for higher take-home pay. Paul Ryan and I will deliver it," he declared, referring to his vice-presidential running mate. Obama was back in Washington after a 40-hour, eight-state tour in which he asked Americans to defy the omens of a weak economy and high unemployment by voting to renew his lease on the White House. But he was launching a media blitz of sorts, with 10 interviews on Friday, his campaign said. The day before, he lambasted Romney for opposing his bailout of the auto industry as he campaigned in Ohio, a perennial battleground in which car manufacturing supports one in eight jobs.  "I refused to walk away from those workers, I refused to walk away from those jobs. I bet on American workers. I would do it again because that bet always pays off," Obama roared, in a populist pitch for blue collar votes. Romney for his part was seeking to convince voters that Obama's effort has fallen miserably flat, and that in the absence of a strong four-year record, the president was turning to trivial issues to knock his challenger. "Four years ago, candidate Obama spoke to the scale of the times," Romney will say in Ames, Iowa, according to excerpts from his speech released by the campaign. "Today, he shrinks from it, trying instead to distract our attention from the biggest issues to the smallest, from characters on Sesame Street and silly word games to misdirected personal attacks he knows are false." After the third and final presidential debate this week, which focused on foreign policy, Romney was squarely back on the issue that has framed his campaign: the fragile state of the US economy.He hit out at Obama's plan to end tax breaks on some small businesses and the wealthy as a job-killer and warned against excess federal spending. "This is not the time to double down on the trickle-down government policies that have failed us," Romney will say. "It is time for new, bold changes that measure up to the moment, that can bring America's families the certainty that the future will be better than the past." The president's aides are privately signaling increasing confidence that he will prevail. But Romney has sought to convince his supporters that he has the momentum in the final stretch. And he continued his steady shift to the center, highlighting his work across party lines as governor of Massachusetts, where he worked with a legislature that was 85 percent Democratic. "Instead of fighting with one another, we came together to solve our problems," he said. "Good Democrats can come together with good Republicans to solve big problems. What we need is leadership." Romney blames Obama for four years of lackluster US growth, while the Democratic incumbent warns that Americans have come too far out of recession to risk reversing the progress under Republicans. Earlier, Obama became the first sitting president to cast an early vote, in a successful grab for news coverage also designed to mobilize his supporters to register their ballots early. But one menace could thwart those efforts in some key states. Hurricane Sandy is churning in the Atlantic, and threatening much of the Eastern Seaboard including the battleground state of Virginia, where Romney and Obama are set to campaign in coming days. The "Frankenstorm" is expected to collide with a powerful "nor'easter" weather system that could dump heavy rains on snow across a large swathe of the country, potentially upending campaigning and early voting.