Presidential Campaigns Hit New Hampshire In Full Force

With the national political conventions are behind us, the final two months of the presidential campaign began Friday in New Hampshire. In a close election, the state's four electoral votes could make all the difference.

Both presidential campaigns are in the Granite State Friday. President Obama spoke in Portsmouth this afternoon and Mitt Romney is scheduled to speak in Nashua Friday evening.

Jobs and the economy continue to be the pressing concern, and the president addressed the reality:

We know it's not good enough. We need to create more jobs faster. We need to fill the hole left by this recession faster. We need to come out of this crisis stronger than when we went in.

This was on the tails of the jobs report the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday morning, revealing unemployment continuing to hover around eight percent.

A recent poll from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found a 49/46 Obama/Romney split. With the electorate fairly evenly divided, Andrew Smith, the center's director, said the key question in this election is which party has voters motivated enough to show up on election day?

Trying to motivate his Democratic base to make it to the polls, Obama emphasized how issues other than the economy also hold importance:

You can't buy into the cynicism that change we fought so hard for isn't possible. You can't give up on the idea that your vote makes a difference. Because if you do give up, then the lobbyists and the special interests — they'll fill the void. The folks who are writing the ten million dollar checks, the folks running all these superPAC ads, the folks who want to tell you who you can marry or tell women that they can't make decision about their own health care — that's who will fill the void if you're not in this, if you're not engaged, if you're not focused, if you're not fighting. We're going to have to work because this is going to be a close election. Only you can make sure that we don't go backwards. Only you have the power to move us forward.

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