President Barack Obama formally opened his re-election bid Saturday with two rallies in which he highlighted accomplishments over his three and a half years in the White House and argued that America can't afford to adopt Republicans' "bad ideas." "We are making progress and now we face a choice," said the president, at his first rally at the Schottenstein Center on the campus of The Ohio State University in Columbus. "This is a make or break moment for the middle class, and we can't turn back now." In this 36-minute-long address, Obama said presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would "rubber stamp" the congressional GOP agenda, telling the crowd that "we cannot give him that chance."
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"We will finish what we started," Obama tells backers at a Virginia rally
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The president began the day with an event in Ohio, kicking off his re-election bid
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Both Ohio and Virginia are considered crucial battleground states in the election
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Romney is returning to Ohio on Monday
While smaller in size than many @placeholder rallies during the 2008 campaign, the crowd dwarfed the size of any rally held this cycle by Romney.
@placeholder has become a crucial battleground state in recent presidential elections.