Presidential candidate urges Hill City to get out the vote
With less than 24 hours before polls open nationwide, Mitt Romney made a stop at Virginia Aviation in Lynchburg, Va. to address a crowd of nearly 5,000. Many of those in attendance were Liberty University students. Romney spoke for approximately 20 minutes, but insisted that words will not change the country.
Romney — Presidential candidate Mitt Romney rallies in Lynchburg with one day left to campaign. Photo credit: Ruth Bibby
“Talk is cheap,” Romney said. “A record is real and is earned with real effort. The president promised change, but change can’t be measured in speeches. It’s measured in achievement.”
According to Romney, what Obama has achieved is not good enough for the American people.
“The president has brought almost every argument he can think of to try and convince you that the last four years have been a success,” Romney said. “And so, his plan for the next four years is to take all the ideas from the first term … and do them over again. He calls that forward. I call it forewarned.”
Gov. Romney said that he bases his optimism for the coming years on his faith in the American spirit.
“If there is anyone who is worried that the last four years are the best that America can do, or if there’s anyone who fears that the American Dream is fading away … I have an unequivocal message,” Romney said. “America is about to come roaring back.”
Romney thanked campaign volunteers, and called on everyone in attendance — campaign workers or not — to do their part in the final push.
“I also want to thank many of you in this crowd that have been out there, working on the campaign, making calls at the victory centers and putting up yard signs — in your neighbor’s yard,” Romney said with a chuckle. “We ask that you stay at this all the way until victory on Tuesday night.”
Gov. Bob McDonnell, who spoke prior to Romney, urged voters to get out the vote, citing the importance of every single voter in the close race.
“I can tell you in 2009, when you elected me attorney general, I was elected by 360 votes,” McDonnell said. “Let me do the math for you: one-seventh of one vote per precinct, that’s what made the difference.”
Liberty students came by the thousands to the event, courtesy of buses provided by the Romney campaign. Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. excused students from classes to allow those who wanted to go to have the opportunity to do so.
“I don’t know how many thousands were here, but I’d bet 50 percent of the crowd was Liberty,” Falwell said. “Gov. Romney knew it, so it speaks well for our university. We were well represented.”
The event was the first of its kind for many of the student participants, and it will not be something any of them will soon forget.
“It was really upbeat. There was a lot of energy and sense of hope,” Liberty junior Joel Denney said. “(Romney) has a clear vision for his plan, and that’s what I like to hear.”
“Being at this rally was not only empowering for the Liberty University student body, but I thought it was also empowering for America,” Liberty student Tucker Whitley said. “I was excited to be here, and I really hope that tomorrow, we’ll see a change.”
For one Liberty student from California, taking part in Republican rallies while attending Liberty has become a family tradition.
“It’s really neat because my mom went to Liberty many years ago and got to hear Reagan speak before he was elected president,” Jeannette Larsen said. “And now I’m at Liberty, and I got to hear Romney speak before hopefully he is elected president.”
Roanoke, Va.
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney also stopped at Integrity Windows in Roanoke, Va. Thursday, Nov. 1 to deliver a stump speech to a crowd of approximately 2,500.
At the top of Romney’s agenda was to debunk the president’s recent plan to create a new secretary of business position to oversee the economic progress of the nation.
“We don’t need a secretary of business to understand business, we need a president who understands business,” Romney said. “This isn’t a time for small measures. This is a time for greatness — for big change, for real change.”
Cutting into the crowd’s raucous chants of “five more days, five more days,” Romney outlined the changes he would like to make, reiterating his already well-known Five-Point Plan.
Peppered with digs at the president, Romney delivered the key points related to his five domestic goals tied to energy, foreign trade, education, debt-reduction and lower taxes.
“I don’t care how much the president talks about liking, ‘all of the above’ when it comes to energy because I know what he means by ‘all of the above,’” Romney said. “He means all of the energy that comes from above the ground. I like wind and solar too, but I also like the energy that comes from below the ground — oil, coal and gas.”
Romney also called for a dramatic decrease in government spending and aggressive debt-reduction.
“I’m going to do something that’s been spoken about for years, but hasn’t been done yet, and that is I’m going to cut federal spending,” Romney said. “I’m going to cap it and finally get us on track to a balanced budget.”
The last of the governor’s major talking points was related to taxes —something he says the government has been taking too much of.
“If you’re successful, the government wants more than half of what you make,” Romney said. “I want to change this dynamic, and make business recognize that they have a friend in Washington — not a foe.”
In a private telephone interview, the Champion asked Democrat Dick Cranwell, former Majority Leader in the Virginia House of Delegates and former chairman of the Democrat Party of Virginia, for a response.
Cranwell suggested that to ask what a candidate would do to create a more business-friendly environment is asking the wrong question.
“America is the best place in the world to do business,” Cranwell said.
Cranwell also called into question Romney’s adamant appeal for jobs in the coal industry, arguing that Romney’s record in Massachusetts indicates he is not nearly as big a supporter as his rhetoric suggests.
Finally, Cranwell defended Obama’s plan for a secretary of business, claiming that Romney had misrepresented it.
“What the president proposed was to merge several agencies,” Cranwell said. “It would probably be reducing the government.”