Democrats attack Romney, defend Obama at convention

CHARLOTTE— Democrats defended President Barack Obama’s handling of the struggling US economy on Tuesday and urged voters to give him four more years at their national convention, with sharp criticism of Republican Mitt Romney. The speech by First Lady Michelle Obama was the main event at the start of the three-day gathering in Charlotte, which concluded with Obama’s acceptance of the nomination in an address on Thursday in a 74,000-seat downtown football stadium. The convention gives Obama a chance to seize the political spotlight from Romney and Republicans, who used their gathering last week to repeatedly attack Obama’s economic leadership. In a fiery speech, Newark Mayor Cory Booker fought back against Republican complaints about Obama’s plans to raise taxes on the richest Americans.

 

 

“Being asked to pay your fair share isn’t class warfare. It’s patriotism,” said Booker, a rising star in the party. Democratic speakers argued Obama has done well in bringing the country back from a possible depression when he took over in January 2009 and deserves another chance. Republicans stayed on the offensive, criticising Obama for telling a Colorado television reporter that he would give himself a grade of “incomplete” for his first term. “The kind of recession we had, we should be bouncing out of it,” Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan said on CBS’s This Morning. “We’re not creating jobs at near the pace we could. That’s why we’re offering big solutions for the big problems we have today.” Obama’s economic argument got a little tougher on Tuesday. New surveys showed US manufacturing shrank at its sharpest clip in more than three years last month, while exports and hiring in the sector also slumped.