Obama focuses on Romney, not student loans during VCU visit

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Mark Robinson
Assistant News Editor
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President Barack Obama took aim at likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in an address to a crowd of 8,000 supporters at VCU today on the second stop of his 2012 re-election campaign tour.

Obama urged Virginia voters to move his vision of America forward by supporting his campaign. Support for his opponent, the president said, would push America backward.

“This isn’t just another election. This is a make-or-break moment for America’s middle class,” he said. “We’ve come too far to abandon all the change we’ve fought for over these past few years.”

In remarks nearly identical to those he gave to a crowd of 14,000 people at Ohio State University earlier Saturday morning, Obama told the crowd of supporters that Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans “think the same bad ideas will lead to a different result.”

Obama criticized Romney’s stance on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Romney’s proposed $5 trillion dollar budget cut. The president also rebuked his opponent’s assertion that corporations are people, much to the delight of the Siegel Center crowd.

“Corporations aren’t people,” Obama said. “People are people.”

Outside of his criticism of Romney, Obama highlighted policy victories relating to the economy, healthcare and the automotive industry. He attempted to touch on all the major issues in his 40 minute speech.

But he missed one.

Despite his choice of venue, the President did not focus on federal financial aid or student loans in his address to the crowd of supporters, many of whom were college students.

At a rally Thursday at Washington Lee High School in Arlington, Va., Obama did encourage students to lobby Congress to pass a bill that would keep the interest rate for student loans from jumping to 6.8 percent.

The non-mention at Saturday’s rally did not bother Sai Iyer, a VCU senior and the youngest of 35 national co-chairman for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

“I think if you look at what the president has accomplished in terms of college affordability, it speaks for itself,” Iyer said. “For me, there’s no real argument for who has been leading on college affordability. It’s this president.”

In her introduction of the President, First Lady Michelle Obama addressed college students directly. She reminded them to register to vote at their new addresses if they move over the summer.

“Barack needs you to join one of our neighborhood teams and start organizing in your own communities,” she said.

Both the President and the First Lady acknowledged the likelihood of a close race with GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. A Washington Post poll from May 3 has Obama leading Romney in the commonwealth 51 percent to 44 percent.

Obama won Virginia by six percentage points in 2008. He was the first Democrat in more than 40 years to claim Virginia’s electoral votes – something Virginia Democratic Senate nominee Timothy Kaine is confident Obama can do again in November.

“We’re at a crossroads again,” Kaine said. “We can come together as we have so many times to focus on moving forward and that’s exactly what we’ll do when we elect President Obama for a second term.”

Obama also earned the support of Richmond mayor Dwight C. Jones and VCU Men’s Basketball Coach Shaka Smart.

Smart opened the program by endorsing Obama because of the “genuine care and concern” Obama displays for the people he leads, he told the crowd.