Obama stumps in Sandusky

President Obama speaks to the crowd gathered at Washington Park for an ice cream social and speech in Sandusky. THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGT Enlarge | Buy This Photo

SANDUSKY — President Obama told an enthusiastic outdoor crowd here in Washington Park that he is in politics because he wants the next generation to have the same opportunities he had when he grew up.

In his second speech of the day, the President spoke without notes or teleprompter, hitting many of the same points he made earlier in the day at Wolcott House Museum in Maumee.

“I’m running for a second term because we have more to do,” Mr. Obama said, such as hiring more teachers, and making college more affordable. “I want to deal with our debt but do it in a balanced, responsible way.”

The President was in the first, busy day of a two-day bus tour from Toledo to Pittsburgh. Called the “Betting On America Bus Tour,” Mr. Obama presented himself as the champion of what he called the “big, diverse, hopeful, optimistic, hard-working, patriotic middle class.”

President starts his bus tour at Wolcott House in Maumee.

Obama makes unexpected stop near Oak Harbor.

He portrayed his opponent, Republican Mitt Romney, as representing the other side of the “stalemate” in Washington, the side that wants tax cuts for the wealthy and to cut services and programs to pay for it.

“In you I see my own life and everything my parents and grandparents struggled for. We will finish what we started in 2008,” the President said.

After a 26 minute speech, President Obama headed for Parma, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb.

The President’s speech drew about 350 people and was the main event of an ice cream social put together by his re-election campaign. Supporters sat at picnic tables and on folding chairs and park benches. The ice cream came from Toft’s, a local dairy.

Orlando Pace, a Sandusky native who played 13 seasons in the National Football League, introduced Mr. Obama.

Ohio Democratic Party officials said it was the first visit by a sitting president to Sandusky since Harry Truman in 1948.