Obama, Romney blitz through swing states in race to White House

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Mitt Romney stepped up his bid to strip President Obama of the popular attributes that propelled his candidacy four years and claim them as his own, casting himself in a formal speech here as an agent of change who would govern as a post-partisan president.

Saying the nation is at a critical juncture, the Republican nominee repeated his newest campaign mantra – that he would usher in “real change” – and summoned Americans to shift course to meet the challenges the country faces.

But as Romney insisted his campaign was on the march – and aides tried to expand the playing field by arguing Minnesota suddenly was competitive – the electoral math lingered as a serious obstacle for the Republican. Fresh polling in the critical battleground of Ohio suggested Obama still holds a slim lead there, and his state campaign chairman acknowledged Romney’s difficulty of taking the White House without Ohio.

The president’s re-election campaign, meanwhile, claimed an insurmountable lead in early voting there and in other key swing states, including Iowa.

Obama mocked Romney’s new campaign theme, saying in an interview with Philadelphia radio host Michael Smerconish that Romney’s policies are “not big changes, they’re a repeat, a relapse of things that haven’t worked for over a decade now.”

In the same interview, Obama promised to get to the bottom of what happened Sept. 11 in Libya where U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in an attack but he suggested that Republicans have only tried to politicize the issue.

“I’ve always been straight with the American people with the decisions that we’ve made,” Obama said, while Romney “hasn’t been restrained by facts.”