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'I CARE,' ASSURES MITT, TO HELP BOOST SINKING SWING-STATE POLLS

WESTERVILLE, OHIO - Slipping in states that could sink his presidential bid, Republican Mitt Romney declared Wednesday that "I care about the people of America" and can do more than President Obama to improve their lives. In an all-day Ohio duel, Obama scoffed that a challenger who calls half the nation "victims" was unlikely to be of much help.

WESTERVILLE, OHIO -

Slipping in states that could sink his presidential bid, Republican Mitt Romney declared Wednesday that "I care about the people of America" and can do more than President Obama to improve their lives. In an all-day Ohio duel, Obama scoffed that a challenger who calls half the nation "victims" was unlikely to be of much help.

Romney's approach reflected what he is up against: a widening Obama lead in polls in key states such as Ohio, the backlash from a leaked video in which he disparages Obama supporters as government-dependent people who see themselves as victims and a campaign imperative to make his policy plans more plain.

With fewer than six weeks to go, and just one week before the first big debate, Obama's campaign reveled in the latest public polling - but tried to crush any sense of overconfidence. "If we need to pass out horse blinders to all of our staff, we will do that," said campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

The day's setting was Ohio, where Obama's momentum has seemed to be growing. It's also a state that no Republican has won the White House without carrying.

Romney, eager to project confidence and brush aside suggestions that he was faltering, went after working-class voters outside Columbus and Cleveland before rolling to Toledo. Obama rallied college crowds at Bowling Green State University and Kent State University, reminding Ohioans that their state allows them to start casting ballots next week. Early voting has already begun in more than two dozen other states.

For Romney, in his appearances and in a new TV ad in which he appeals straight to the camera, it was time for plain talk to contrast himself with Obama, and to mince no words about his expectations.

"There are so many people in our country who are hurting right now. I want to help them. I know what it takes," Romney told the crowd in Westerville. "I care about the people of America, and the difference between me and Barack Obama is: I know what to do."

Asked in an interview about his ability to empathize with ordinary Americans, Romney cited the health-care law that he championed while governor of Massachusetts. It's a topic Romney usually doesn't raise because Obama cites the initiative as the basis for his own health-care overhaul. Conservatives despise what they call "Obamacare" - Romney has vowed to repeal and replace it if elected - and tend to oppose the idea of universal health coverage.

"Don't forget - I got everybody in my state insured," Romney told NBC News while in Toledo. "One-hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don't think there's anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record."

That message so late in the campaign - a presidential nominee declaring his concern for all the people of the country - was part of his widening effort to rebound from his caught-on-video comments at a fundraiser.

In those comments, made last May but only recently revealed, Romney said that "47 percent of the people" pay no federal income tax, will vote for Obama no matter what, see themselves as victims, think the government must care for them and do not "take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

New opinion polls, conducted after the video became public, show Obama opening up apparent leads over Romney in battleground states, including Ohio and Virginia. And majorities of voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania say that Romney's policies would favor the rich over the middle class or the poor.

Specifically in Ohio, two surveys show the president crossing the 50 percent mark among likely voters. A Washington Post poll found Obama ahead 52 percent to 44 percent among those most likely to turn out, and a Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times poll showed a 10-point Obama lead among definite voters.