COLUMBUS: US President Barack Obama Saturday said America had suffered through too much pain to turn theeconomy over to Republican Mitt Romney, as he fired up his first official campaign rally.
Obama sought to revive the political magic that swept him to power in 2008, hampered by new signs that the recovery may be running out of steam and the fact that many people in the heartland are still struggling.
The president told a rowdy rally in swing state Ohio that Romney would "rubber stamp" some "bad ideas" such as slashing tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts on social programs brewed by conservatives in Congress.
"That's the choice in this election and that is why I am running for a second term as president of the United States," Obama said, drawing loud chants of four more years from a crowd in a sports arena.
Obama said that he had taken office in 2009 amid the deepest economic crisis since the 1930s, in an implicit recognition that times remain tough for many people for whom a recovery remains a mirage amid 8.1 percent unemployment.
"We didn't quit. We don't quit, together we are fighting our way back."
"This crisis took years to develop and the economy is still facing headwinds and it will take sustained, persistent effort -- yours and mine for America to fully recover," Obama said.
"That is the truth. And we all know it. We are making progress and now we face a choice."
Turning again to Romney, in his most forensic examination yet of his rival's record, Obama seized on a gaffe the former Massachusetts governor once made, when he said "corporations are people."
"People are people," Obama hit back, saying that Romney wanted to simply turn over control of the economy to conservatives who did not care about the middle class.
"Ohio, I tell you what, we cannot give him that chance... This is not just another election, this is a make or break moment for the middle class.
"We have been through too much to turn back now."
Earlier, popular First Lady Michelle Obama reached out to blue collar workers still feeling the lash of the recession, stressing her own humble beginnings, and her family's struggle to send her and her brother to college.
She painted Obama as a man who rose from his own family's struggles, striking an implicit contrast with the wealthy upbringing and current wealth of Romney.
"He is the son of a single mother .... he is the grandson of a woman who woke up before dawn every day to catch a bus to her job at the bank.
"Barack knows what it means when a family struggles. That is what you need to know America is those are the experiences that have made him the man he is today."
"All you have to guide you is your life experiences, your values. When you are making those impossible choices ... it all boils down to who you are and what you stand for .
"We all know what Barack Obama is. And who he is."
Later the Obamas were heading to another crucial swing state in the November 6 election, Virginia for a second rally on the first official weekend of campaigning for the president's bid for a second term.
Romney, who must almost certainly win Ohio to have a shot at capturing the White House, welcomed Obama to the bellwether state with a simple message: "Where are the jobs?"
"I recognize, of course, as do all Americans, that you inherited an economic crisis," Romney wrote in an opinion article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper on Friday.
"But you've now had three years to turn things around. The record of those three years is clear. Your policies have failed, not only in Ohio, but across the nation."
An average of national opinion polls by the RealClearPolitics website shows Obama with a narrow three-point lead over Romney -- 47 to 44 percent.
The president's approval rating generally sits in the high 40s, just below the 50 percent threshold that presidents need to feel confident about reelection.
In Ohio, Obama led Romney 44 to 42 percent, in a Quinnipiac University poll this week which augured a tight battle for a state where the unemployment rate stands at 7.5 percent, below the national average of 8.1 percent.
In 2008, Obama became the first Democrat since the 1960s to win the former southern Republican bastion of Virginia, and hopes to exploit the state's influx of skilled minorities and affluent voters to win again this year.
In a Washington Post poll Thursday, the president led Romney by seven points in the state, where unemployment is also lower than nationally, at 5.6 percent.
On Friday, Obama suffered a blow when a second straight month of disappointing job creation was revealed in Labor Department figures showing the economy pumped out only a net 115,000 jobs in April.
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