GOP governors in Maumee before Obama visit

7/4/2012
BY TOM TROY
BLADE POLITICS WRITER

Two nationally prominent Republicans will speak for the Republican presidential candidate Thursday morning, a couple of hours in advance of Democratic President Barack Obama’s appearance in Lucas County.

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota will address supporters of GOP candidate Mitt Romney at the Lucas County Fairgrounds in Maumee at 8:30 a.m.

The governors will join U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (R., Bowling Green) at the press conference.

Romney campaign spokesman Chris Maloney is labeling the Obama bus trip that starts in Maumee Thursday the “broken promises” tour.

“President Obama’s tour will offer him the opportunity to see first-hand the devastating impact his administration’s policies are having on job creators and communities across northern Ohio and the Mahoning Valley. From the Obama Administration’s regulatory assault on coal, to the job-killing taxes and mandates found in Obamacare, it’s going to be hard for the President to argue that Ohioans should gamble on handing him a second term,” Mr. Maloney said.

Mr. Pawlenty was an early but unsuccessful contender for the nomination that Mr. Romney has all but sewn up. Mr. Jindal is viewed as a future possible GOP presidential candidate.

After Maumee, they will travel on a Romney bus to Parma, a Cleveland suburb, for an afternoon rally and will end the day with a stop in the Mahoning Valley where President Obama is to wrap up the Ohio leg of his trip on Friday.

President Obama is to speak at the Wolcott House Museum grounds in Maumee at 11:15 a.m. and then travel by campaign bus to make appearances in Sandusky, Parma, the Youngstown area, and Pittsburgh over two days.

The Obama trip is labeled “Betting On America” and is intended to showcase the President’s efforts to support the middle class, such as with the 2009 auto industry bailout.