Democrats kick off their 2012 convention Tuesday with First Lady Michelle Obama to fire the first shots of a three-day salvo aimed at breaking the electoral deadlock with Republicans.
Her address comes as Republicans sharpen their attacks on President Barack Obama after he gave himself an "incomplete" grade for his management of the economy in his final rally before accepting the Democratic Party nomination.
At the Republican convention last week Ann Romney was the linchpin of a bold attempt to portray Obama's rival Mitt Romney as a soft family man and deconstruct Democratic stereotypes of him as a ruthless corporate raider.
When she takes center stage at 10:30 pm (0330 GMT Wednesday) in a packed arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, it will be Michelle Obama's turn to take the harder edges off her husband, a man sometimes seen as professorial, even aloof.
Exactly nine weeks before Americans decide who will occupy the Oval Office for the next four years, the First Lady will make the case that it should be her husband, the country's first black president.
Michelle, who is more popular than the president, is expected to woo women voters as part of the Obama campaign's drive to eke out any advantage in a race marked by too-close-to-call polls and a dearth of undecided voters.
"She'll speak about the values and experiences that drive him. She'll give a personal, passionate speech," campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told journalists aboard Air Force One as he flew to a rally in swing state Virginia.
Michelle's speech comes four years after she vowed -- before a stadium full of delegates in Denver, Colorado -- that Barack Obama, despite his "funny name," would make an "extraordinary president."
Today, with economic malaise casting serious doubt on that claim, Democrats face a glut of Republican charges that, though his election was historic and rightly celebrated, Obama's presidency has been a bust.
Obama was asked to grade his performance on the economy during an interview with a Colorado news program broadcast on Monday and unwittingly provided an opening for his opponents.
"You know, I would say 'incomplete,'" Obama said, before laying out steps he had taken to save the auto industry, make college more affordable and to invest in clean energy and research, which he said were important for the long term.
Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan jumped, taking Obama to task as he exclaimed with incredulity on CBS News: "Four years into a presidency and it's incomplete?"
Obama's comments followed another stumble by his team at the weekend, when top officials labored over the answer to a seemingly straightforward question: "Are Americans better off now than they were four years ago?"
But with the campaigns moving into the final stretch after this week's Democratic convention, it is the Republicans that appear to have ground to make up in the White House race.
National polls put the rivals neck-and-neck, but a closer inspection of swing states reveals that Romney has his work cut out, especially as the poll bounce Republicans were hoping for after their convention last week in Tampa, Florida failed to materialize.
In a sign of how close the Obama campaign believes the race remains, the president continued a four-day "Road to Charlotte" tour, taking in territory that will decide November's election.
Following trips to battlegrounds Iowa and Colorado and a tour of storm-hit New Orleans, Obama was campaigning Tuesday in Virginia, another state that could prove vital to his hopes come November.
The president flies to Charlotte on Wednesday on the eve of his nomination acceptance speech, which serves as an opportunity to make his case to the American people that although times are still hard he deserves another term.
The 51-year-old graying president will seek to rekindle some 2008 magic on Thursday as he leaves the confines of a convention hall for a huge outdoor football stadium packed with 70,000 people.
He will defend his crusade for change, highlighting his historic health care reform and his orders to end the ban on gays serving openly in the military, to withdraw troops from Iraq, to decimate Al-Qaeda and kill Osama bin Laden.
Obama will call for higher taxes on the rich and for safeguarding health care for the elderly, hoping to come off as more sympathetic to the middle class than that of multi-millionaire Romney, the 65-year-old former Massachusetts governor.
On Wednesday Bill Clinton, a hugely popular former Democratic president remembered for steering a more prosperous age, will take the stage for a highly anticipated speech making the economic case for four more Obama years.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-tells-americans-punt-romneys-economic-plan-183727758.html
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