Ohio, Pennsylvania hold key to White House

PITTSBURGH - Hurriyet Daily News

AP Photo

House President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney staged one final push to win over voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania yesterday, knowing that victory in the swing states in today's election could put them into the White House.
 
Former President Bill Clinton gave residents of Pittsburgh one last sales pitch yesterday at a Democratic rally, explaining why voters should re-elect Obama.

"To me, this election is fairly simple. Who's more likely to restore the middle class and give poor folks a chance to work their way into it?" Clinton told the crowd.
 
"I think it's the candidate who got off the campaign trail and went to work on Hurricane Sandy with Republicans," Clinton said, referring to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who praised Obama's response to the disaster despite being a staunch political foe.
 
Obama gets Sandy bounce

Obama's handling of the deadly hurricane increased his share of the polls, with a Pew Research Center survey showing 67 percent of registered voters approved of Obama's management of the impact of the storm, while just 15 percent disapproved.
 
This confirms a finding from a Washington Post/ABC News tracking poll in the middle of last week that showed that more than three quarters of Americans believed that Obama's response to Sandy had been "excellent" or "good."
 
Romney and his campaign team, meanwhile, have been pulling out all the stops, spending a fortune on advertising in the final hours before the poll. Anyone looking to watch a YouTube video in the U.S. was likely first greeted by a Romney ad, such was the all-out commercial campaign put out by the Grand Old Party.
 
Less exciting than four years ago

For all the intensity of the present election, the mood of the present polls has failed to match the atmosphere surrounding the 2008 campaign, when many were transfixed by the prospect of Obama becoming the first African-American to win the White House.