Thousands Gather At CMU For President Obama’s Visit

July 6, 2012 8:03 PM

(Photo Credit: NewsRadio 1020 KDKA)

Reporting Jon Delano

Filed under

Local, News, Politics, Syndicated Local

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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – President Barack Obama wrapped up a two-day bus tour of Ohio and Pennsylvania at Carnegie Mellon University Friday afternoon.

Thousands stood in the intense heat to listen to President Obama speak. Officials at CMU began letting ticketholders in shortly before noon. The line stretched nearly a mile to enter security.

Obama whipped up the crowd with a message directed to America’s middle class.

“And that’s what’s led me to ask me for a second term as President of the United States, to fight for America’s middle class and everybody’s trying to get into the middle class,” he said.

A mile away at Soldiers and Sailors, the Romney campaign had a small counter-rally with surrogates like former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

“Barack Obama promised hope and change and what he’s really done is bait-and-switch,” Pawlenty said. “He made all these promises about turning around the economy, providing jobs for Pennsylvania, for America, and it’s turned out to not be true.”

But the president rejected that characterization as coming from those with failed economic policies.

“The last three years when some folks said, ‘Let’s let Detroit go bankrupt.’

“We said, ‘No, we’re betting on the American worker, we’re betting on American industries,’ and now GM is back at No. 1 and Chrysler and Ford are back.”