Emmanuel Dunand / AFP - Getty Images

Mitt Romney holds a rally at Defiance High School in Defiance, Ohio, on Thursday.

DEFIANCE, Ohio – Under the bright lights of a high school football field here in Northwest Ohio, Mitt Romney's opposition to the 2009 auto bailout reared its head again as a campaign issue that could help decide the result of this critical swing state.   

 Sen. Rob Portman, introducing Romney, brought up the bailout, telling a crowd of more than 10,000 supporters that "we need to talk about this tonight" in an effort to clear up what he said were dishonest attacks by the president at the last debate.   

"First, it was President Obama who actually took GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy. That’s a fact," Portman said. "Second, Mitt Romney did propose government help. He proposed government guarantees for loans. He proposed the government backing up the warranties, and folks, all the independent fact checkers who have looked at this agree: President Obama was wrong."

Romney did not mention the bailout explicitly, but did voice his support for the U.S. auto industry, saying he would stand up to China on trade issues that affect auto companies and mentioning reports today that automaker Jeep was considering moving its operations entirely overseas.  

 "I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers of this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China. I will fight for every good job in America. I'm going to fight to make sure trade is fair, and if it’s fair, America will win," Romney said.   

 Democrats quickly seized on any mention of the auto industry to reinforce Obama's bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, looking to capitalize on an issue they believe is particularly resonant among voters in this corner of Ohio.  

"While Barack Obama bet on the American worker and saved the American auto industry and more than one million jobs, Mitt Romney would have just ‘let Detroit go bankrupt.’ Voters in Ohio won’t forget how—at a make or break moment for one of America’s key industries—Mitt Romney would have turned his back and watched GM and Chrysler go under," Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith said in a statement.  

 The Obama campaign also forwarded reporters a statement from a Chrysler spokesperson claiming there were never plans to move assembly lines to China.   

“Let’s set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China. It’s simply reviewing the opportunities to return Jeep output to China for the world’s largest auto market. U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation,” Gualberto Ranieri, a spokesman for Chrysler said in the statement posted on the automakers' blog.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

Coincidentally, after the Thursday night rally, a group of Detroit newspapers announced they would be endorsing President Obama, shredding Romney for his position in opposition to the bailout. 

 "It is an unforgivable and unconscionable [sic] position by a man with the audacity to claim himself a son of Detroit. Romney may have grown up here, but he left long ago," the editorial on MLive.com read in part.

All this serves to highlight how the auto bailout legacy continues to be a political minefield for Romney here in the industrial Midwest.  

 On Friday, Romney will return to safer ground in Iowa where he is scheduled to deliver a speech on the economy, debt and deficits, which could serve as a summation of his views on the election's most important issue as the campaign moves into its final full week.  

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Perhaps the most impactful part of President Barack Obama’s speech here Thursday night wasn’t anything he said, but how he arrived.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama greets supporters on the tarmac upon his arrival on Air Force One at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012.

The presidential aircraft, Air Force One, taxied right up to a crowd of 12,000 at the Burke Lakefront Airport, easing to a stop in front of the podium.

After a dramatic few minutes when the crowd cheered on the plane itself, the president descended, breaking into a full jog to the stage, the words “United States of America” emblazoned on the aircraft behind him, gleaming in stark white and blue against the darkness of the night behind it.

While such theatrics were an example of the power of the presidency, Obama’s hoarse voice proved that even presidents get run down sometimes – for example, after 48 hours covering eight states and catching a few hours of sleep on the plane – even if it is Air Force One.

“We’ve been going for two days straight, from the East Coast to the West Coast,” he told the crowd. “I’ve still got a spring in my step because our cause is right. Because we’re fighting for the future,” he continued.

The president hit some notes that he reserves for Ohio events, including a special focus on the auto bailout, popular with Ohio’s autoworkers, which his presidential rival Mitt Romney opposed.

“If Mitt Romney had been president when the auto industry was on the verge of collapse we might not have an American auto industry today,” Obama said. “The auto industry supports one in eight Ohio jobs. It’s a source of pride to this state. It’s a source of pride for generations of workers. I refused to walk away from those workers.”

After his speech, the president turned and got right back on his plane, and took off for the White House.

DAYTON, Ohio – Taking his campaign into car country, President Barack Obama touted his from-the-start support of the auto industry bailout, contrasting it with what he said was Mitt Romney’s shifting position on the issue.

Highlighting what is a popular topic in this swing state, where one in eight jobs is tied to the auto industry, Obama joked that his Republican opponent had “Romnesia” in Monday night’s debate when he said he would have helped car companies avoid bankruptcy during the 2009 auto crisis.

“If you said that you love American cars during a debate, you’re a car guy – but you wrote an op-ed titled, ‘Let Detroit Go Bankrupt’ – you definitely have a case of Romnesia,” Obama said as he spoke to a crowd of 9,500 at a public park here.

Seeking to characterize his opponent as untrustworthy, Obama said, “Last night Gov. Romney looked you right in the eye, looked me in the eye, tried to pretend that he’d never said, ‘Let Detroit go bankrupt.’ Tried to pretend he meant the same thing I did when we intervened and worked to make sure management and workers got together to save the U.S. auto industry.”

“Pretended like somehow I had taken his advice,” Obama said.

But, he continued, “People don’t forget. The people of Dayton don’t forget. The people of Ohio don’t forget,” he said.

The president returned to the White House after his Dayton event; he heads Wednesday to Davenport, Iowa where he kicks off another two days full of campaign events.

Updated 10:07 a.m. - ATHENS, OH – Energized by a huge crowd and, likely, his improved debate performance against Mitt Romney Tuesday night, President Barack Obama went on an extended riff during remarks here about what he said was Romney’s inauthentic support for coal energy.

Noting that Romney praised coal during the debate at Hofstra University, Obama pointed out that as governor of Massachusetts, Romney appeared in front of a coal factory to criticize its high level of toxic pollution, saying, “that plant kills people.”

Obama said voters should be skeptical of Romney’s embrace of coal, mocking him as “running around talking like he’s Mr. Coal,” as a crowd of 14,000 at Ohio University cheered him on.

“Does anybody ever actually look at that guy and think, man, he’s really into coal?” Obama asked the audience as he chuckled.

Obama then brought up an ad, released earlier this week, that showed Romney speaking to workers at an Ohio coal mine, saying the workers in the ad were forced to attend the August Romney event – which the mining company and some of the workers have refuted.

“Did you see when he was doing that ad, he was in front of all those guys – all these miners with hard hats. Find out later they had to come. Boss made them come. Come on, gotta be on the level if you want to be the president of the United States!” he exclaimed.

The Romney campaign responded to the president's remarks in Athens by releasing a statement from spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg. "“As we approach Election Day, President Obama’s rhetoric and personal attacks will not mask a failed record that has left middle-class families hurting.  Under this President, permits for drilling on federal lands have declined, over one hundred coal-fired plants are schedule to close by the end of the year, and gas prices have more than doubled.  Mitt Romney has an all of the above energy strategy, which will create millions of jobs and put our nation on a course toward North American energy independence by 2020.”

Obama returned to the White House on Wednesday night. He heads to New Hampshire Thursday before taping "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" in New York City.

COLUMBUS, OH -- Feathers were ruffled on Sesame Street on Tuesday when the Obama campaign launched a campaign ad starring Big Bird.

The new spot, which airs on cable networks, mocks Mitt Romney for saying during last week’s debate that he would cut public funding to the Public Broadcasting Service – even though he likes Big Bird.

But Sesame Workshop – the nonpartisan nonprofit behind Sesame Street – wasn’t pleased. In a statement, Sesame Workshop objected to the ad: “We have approved no campaign ads, and, as is our general practice, have requested that both campaigns remove Sesame Street characters and trademarks from their campaign materials.”  

The ad begins with an ominous voiceover listing the names of Wall Street criminals, including Bernie Madoff and Kenneth Lay. The deep, dramatic voice then says, “It’s not Wall Street you have to worry about; it’s Sesame Street.”

The camera then cuts to a shot of Big Bird sleeping.

President Barack Obama has seized on Romney’s Big Bird comment to argue that his Republican challenger would crack down on beloved American institutions such as Sesame Street but would allow Wall Street to run wild.

Speaking to a crowd of 15,000 in Columbus, OH the President said, “Today (Romney) decided we’re going after Big Bird. Elmo’s making a run for the border and Oscar is hiding out in a trash can.”

Emphasizing the Sesame Street theme, recording artist will-i-am kicked off his performance at the Ohio event by playing the Sesame Street theme song.  

The Obama campaign has also dispatched Big Bird mascots to stand outside Romney campaign events and even Michelle has entered the fray. On Tuesday, the first lady told supporters in Loudon, Va.: “We all know good and well that cutting Sesame Street is no way to balance a budget.”

Related: 'Sesame Street' wants Obama campaign to yank ad mentioning Big Bird

Speaking in Van Meter, Iowa, Romney fired back: “These are tough times with real serious issues. You have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about saving Big Bird.”

The Romney campaign noted that Obama has in recent days made more public references to Big Bird than Libya – where the U.S. consulate was recently attacked and the ambassador killed. 

But the Obama campaign stands by its strategy.

“The point we’re making here is that when Mitt Romney was given the opportunity to lay out how he would address the deficit … his first offering was to cut funding to Big Bird and that is absurd and hard to take seriously,” Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

With polls showing Romney improving since the debate, it remains to be seen whether the president’s “Big Bird Offensive” will sway undecided voters.

But one thing is clear – Big Bird says the campaign ad doesn’t fly.

COLUMBUS, OH – As the presidential race heats up in Ohio, President Barack Obama took to the state the same day as Mitt Romney to urge young people to vote -- and to hammer his rival’s positions on foreign policy and cuts to popular government programs.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama greets supporters after speaking during a campaign event at the Oval at Ohio State University October 9, 2012 in Columbus, Ohio.

Telling a crowd of about 15,000 at Ohio State University to take advantage of Ohio’s early voting period, Obama said, “Grab your friends and grab everybody in your dorm, grab your fraternity or sorority” and go to a polling place after his speech, adding that buses waited around the corner to shuttle voters there.

Obama’s appearance here comes at the end of a three-day trip that consisted mostly of fundraising events in California, while Romney, who arrived here this afternoon, will hunker down in the state for the next three days, making up for his previously light footprint here.

At Ohio State, Obama also decried Romney’s foreign policy speech Monday during which he criticized the president’s policies and said he would have kept a troop presence in Iraq.

“If (Gov. Romney) got his way, those troops would still be there,” Obama said. In a speech yesterday, he doubled down on that belief. He said ending the war was a mistake,” Obama said.

The president also added some new embellishments to his now-routine warnings that Romney would cut funding for PBS programs like Sesame Street.

“He's decided we're going after Big Bird. Elmo's making a run for the border – and Oscar's hiding out in a trash can. And Governor Romney wants to let Wall Street run wild again, but he's going to bring down the hammer on Sesame Street,” he said.

To hammer home the point, rapper will.i.am, who performed before the president arrived at the event site, blasted the Sesame Street theme song over the public address system.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – On the opening day of bow hunting season in Ohio, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan addressed a large group of sportsmen in the battleground state proclaiming he is a hunting and fishing enthusiast.

“Our opening day (in Wisconsin) was two weeks ago. I’ve got some stands out in the woods, but they’re not going to see me this year. And you know why? Because we are going to give this country a choice,” Ryan told the crowd, speaking at the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance’s 16th Annual Save Our Heritage Banquet.

Later, he talked about taking his three children fishing.

“Teaching your kid how to take a night crawler and split it into about five pieces and put it on the hook ... make sure they don’t cut their hand when they push the gill down, take it off the hook. That’s a good life lesson. These are the things we teach our kids as hunting and fishing enthusiasts,” Ryan said about he and his wife, Janna.

The former chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen Caucus -- which Ryan described as the largest bipartisan caucus in Congress -- turned partisan midway through his speech expressing concern about another term for President Barack Obama.

“I shudder as a gun owner, seeing his [Obama’s] record when he was in the Illinois state Senate. What would he do if he never has to face the voters ever again? These are the kinds of questions we think about,” Ryan told the roughly 1,000-person crowd.

The attacks on the Obama-Biden ticket didn’t stop there as Ryan read word for word a response to Vice President Joe Biden’s comments Friday in Florida hitting the GOP ticket on Social Security and Medicare.

“Let me be very clear: There is only one person in this race threatening the health and retirement security programs of our seniors, and that is President Obama. There is only one person in this race insisting on raising taxes and that is President Obama,” the Wisconsin congressman said.

He went on to promise: “Mitt Romney and I will never waiver in our commitment to our seniors. Our plans actually save these programs, they make no changes for people in or near retirement, they strengthen Medicare and Social Security for a generation.”

Biden claimed in Boca Raton on Friday that a President Romney would not help the middle class.

“Well, if Governor Romney’s plan goes into effect, it could mean that everyone, everyone of you, would be paying more on taxes on your Social Security. The average senior would have to pay $460 a year more in taxes for their Social Security,” Biden said. “Ladies and gentlemen, that’s why these guys, while these guys are out there having hemorrhaging tax cuts for the super wealthy.”

The event Saturday evening marks Ryan’s 13th campaign appearance in the state since being chosen as Romney’s running mate. He was presented with a shotgun made in Ohio but because of congressional ethics rules asked to have the gift be made part of the event's silent auction. 

Ryan readies for 3-day debate camp

Before heading to the annual banquet, Ryan stopped at a popular sports bar just a few hundred yards away from Ohio State University to watch the Buckeyes play the Michigan State Spartans in East Lansing. He was joined by his wife plus his old college roommate from Miami University of Ohio, Tom Blackstone.

The surprise visit at The Varsity Club -- during which the VP nominee enjoyed a Miller Lite and shook hands with many patrons -- comes at a time when the Romney-Ryan ticket seems to be falling behind in the battleground state of Ohio.

According to a recent Washington Post poll of the state, Obama leads Romney there 52 percent to 41 percent.

Some have argued Ohio’s Republican Gov. John Kasich has not helped the GOP ticket enough as he likes to boast the state’s success in creating jobs. Saturday night, speaking before Ryan at the sportsmen banquet, he again gave his state rave reviews. 

“Folks as I walked around through the audience here, a lot of nice people saying, ‘You know, things are getting better.’ They are getting better. You know we are up 123,000 jobs in our state and that’s good news,” Kasich said. “I will say this to you: If at times I’ve got to take some heat, that’s OK because it is my job to build a stronger Ohio. Forget all the politics. Man to man, man to woman, this is all about making our state strong, and you know what, we’ve got what it takes.”

Ryan heads to Connecticut and New York for the next two days to raise money before heading to Iowa on a two-day bus tour of the Hawkeye State.

Ohio AFL-CIO

A flyer distributed by the AFL-CIO in Ohio.

KENT, OH – At two stops in Ohio on Wednesday, President Barack Obama hammered away at Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney for his lack of support for the auto industry bailout and for investing in companies that moved jobs to China. Neither line of attack is new, but both continue to allow the president to paint Romney as an outsourcer and out of touch.

“He's been talking tough on China. He says he's going to take the fight to them. He's going to go after these cheaters,” Obama said. “I've got to admit that message … is better than what he's actually done about this thing. It sounds better than talking about all the years he spent profiting from companies that sent our jobs to China.”

Obama added: “When you hear this newfound outrage, when you see these ads he's running promising to get tough on China, it feels a lot like that fox saying, ‘You know, we need more secure chicken coops.’”

In Ohio, where about 12 percent of jobs are tied to the auto industry, the president likes to use this line: “When my opponent said we should just let Detroit go bankrupt ... that would have meant walking away from an industry that supports one in eight Ohio jobs.”

Almost always, the audience boos and the president follows up with, “Don’t boo. Vote.”  

The Ohio AFL-CIO, one of the state’s biggest unions, has made the auto bailout message one of their three main bullet points of support for Obama. A flyer distributed by the union states, “Obama took a principled stand to reinvest in the American auto industry, saving a million good jobs and millions more that depend on the auto industry.”

Obama even managed to turn a verbal gaffe during his appearance at Kent State University into a Romney dig when he said, “I want to see us export more jobs.” The president quickly corrected himself and then joked, “I’m sorry, I was channeling my opponent for a second.”

VANDALIA, OH – For the Romney campaign, Tuesday brought yet more bad news from the Buckeye state: a new Washington Post poll showed the Republican presidential nominee trailing President Barack Obama by eight points in this critical battleground state, with 52 percent of Ohio voters in favor of giving the incumbent another four years.

Before Mitt Romney's plane touched down at the Dayton airport today, two top aides were dispatched to the press cabin to put out possible fires the numbers might have sparked.

"The public polls are what the public polls are," Romney Political Director Rich Beeson told reporters. "I kind of hope the Obama campaign is basing their campaign on what the public polls say. We don’t. We have confidence in our data and our metrics."

What the Romney team’s data indicated about Ohio, Beeson wouldn't say. He argued that Romney was inside the margin of error here “by any stretch,” and dismissed the much-hyped Obama ground game in Ohio as activity confused with progress.

"I will put our operation up against anybody’s. But at the end of the day, Ohio is going to come down to the wire and we’ll be in it down to the wire and I’m confident that we will win,” Beeson said.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Romney's Ohio chairman Rob Portman projected similar confidence that Romney would carry his home state, despite the mounting poll data showing him slipping further behind President Obama. He told NBC News that the Romney campaign was taking a page out of then-candidate Obama's book by attempting to run a more regional campaign inside the state. 

"I do think there is a strategy, which the Obama administration is very good at, which is to you know, target particular groups of people and particular regions and you know, the Romney campaign is doing it as well," Portman said.

Portman, a freshman senator, then ticked off the various demographics and localities and how they're being targeted by the Romney campaign: running advertisements accusing the president of a war on coal in the east; talking fracking in communities near the Marcellus and Utica shale formations; and focusing on trade and China in heavy manufacturing areas like the Mahoning Valley, Northeast Ohio and here in Dayton.

"I think that's one way we're going to win Ohio, by addressing the issues region by region," Portman said. "There isn't just one Ohio. It’s not monolithic."

Moments earlier, Romney had done exactly what Portman suggested; running as much against China's trade practices as the incumbent president, and vowing to fight back to preserve jobs.

"This cannot be allowed," Romney said of alleged Chinese trade abuses. "We cannot compete with people who don't play fair and I won't let that go on, I will stop it in its tracks."

In addition to his role as Romney's Ohio campaign chairman, Portman also serves as Romney's debate sparring partner, a role at which he is so good, Romney claims, the GOP nominee sometimes wants "to kick him out of the room."

Asked how debate preparations were going, Portman shrewdly looked to lower expectations for Romney, and raise them for Obama, ahead of the first showdown on Oct. 3rd.

"When you think about it, [Romney] hasn't had a real debate in 10 years," Portman said, claiming the 20-plus GOP debates Romney participated in during the primaries were not one-on-one, and were more like candidate forums than true debates.

He also heaped praise on Obama's debating skills: "Barack Obama is going to be formidable. I think it'll be a good debate, but I certainly would not underestimate what Barack Obama brings to it: a lot of experience in these kinds of debates and obviously a lot of knowledge and background on the federal issues."

MILFORD, OH – Citing Mitt Romney's appearance on NBC's Meet the Press earlier in the day, Vice President Joe Biden took aim Sunday at Romney's failure to name specific tax loopholes he would close to lower taxes and balance the budget.

"He said that he's gonna pay for all these tax cuts by closing the loopholes, but when asked by Mr. Gregory what loopholes he'd close, he couldn't name one," Biden told a crowd of 700 supporters at a western Ohio high school. 

"All this has a giant price tag and it's not going to come from closing loopholes for millionaires," he added. 

On NBC, host David Gregory asked Romney to specify how he would eliminate tax deductions and exceptions in order to compensate for the enormous financial consequences of his deep tax cut proposals. 

Romney responded only by noting that "people at the high end" would have fewer opportunities for tax exemptions, but he declined to pinpoint any specific numbers or policies. 

“High income taxpayers are going to have fewer deductions and exemptions... Those numbers are going to come down. Otherwise, they'd get a tax break. And I want to make sure people understand, despite what the Democrats said at their convention. I am not reducing taxes on high income taxpayers. I'm bringing down the rate of taxation, but also bringing down deductions and exemptions at the high end so the revenues stay the same, the taxes people pay stay the same. Middle income people are going to get a break. But at the high end, the tax coming in stays the same. But we encourage small business, because small business is able to keep more of what it makes and therefore hire more people, which is my priority.”

The stop in Clermont County, a heavily-Republican area that supported John McCain by a 2-1 margin in 2008, was Biden's final campaign event of a two-day swing through Ohio. He will return to the Buckeye State next Wednesday to campaign in Dayton.

Political newcomer Brad Wenstrup upset incumbent four-term Rep. Jean Schmidt on Tuesday in the Republican primary in Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Wenstrup, an Army combat surgeon, garnered nearly 49 percent the district’s vote while Schmidt had nearly 43 percent, according to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office.

Wenstrup won 50 percent of the vote in Schmidt’s home turf of Clermont County and nearly 59 percent in Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati. The 2nd District stretches from Cincinnati into Appalachia.

Wenstrup challenged Schmidt from the right, favoring a flat tax, promising to repeal President Barack Obama's health care reform and calling for competition among insurers across state lines.

He also believes the U.S. pulled combat troops out of Iraq too quickly.

Schmidt appeared to be the only incumbent House member losing in Ohio, according to Cincinnati.com.

Schmidt has represented Ohio’s 2nd District since 2005, when she won a special election against Democratic Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett. She faced a tough primary in 2006 from former Rep. Bob McEwan but had not had a serious challenge from within her party since. However, opponents had recently branded her as supporting higher taxes.