Justin's Political Corner

URBANDALE - President Barack Obama, in Iowa to kick off a campaign swing, mockingly charged Saturday that the just-concluded Republican convention had showcased policies “better suited for the last century.”

“You might as well have watched it on a black and white TV,” Obama told a cheering crowd of thousands in Urbandale, outside Des Moines. The president was in Iowa — a pivotal battleground state — on the first stop of a push that will take him to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC.

Obama recalled how his upset victory over Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses four years ago had revived his campaign at a time when pundits were predicting his political demise. “And it will be you, Iowa, who will choose the path we take from here.”

The president took several shots at the Republican convention in Tampa, noting Romney did not mention Afghanistan in his acceptance speech on Thursday, and accusing his political foes of having outdated ideas. ”It was something to behold. Despite all the challenges that we face in this new century what they offered over those three days was, more often than not, an agenda that was better suited for the last century,” he said. “It was a re-run. We’d seen it before.”

Obama’s greatest vulnerability is the sour economy, still sputtering nearly four years after he took office vowing to fix it. Stubbornly high unemployment and sluggish growth weigh down his hopes for a second term. The president’s response has been to argue that he inherited an economic crisis of historic dimensions and that Romney’s approach is to favor the rich at the expense of the middle class.

H/T: Yahoo! News