In mad dash, candidates seek every vote

Mitt Romney, striking a hopeful tone in the final days of the 2012 race, returned to Iowa, the state that launched his campaign. By Tom Curry, NBC News national affairs writer With the hours quickly running out before voters render their verdict, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney reached out Sunday for the votes of independents who may be disenchanted with President Barack Obama, telling a crowd in Cleveland, "He promised to do so very much, but frankly he fell so very short.  He promised to be a post-partisan president, but he's been most partisan, he's been divisive, blaming, attacking, dividing.  And by the way, it's not only Republicans that he refused to listen too, he also refused to listen to independent voices." Later in his speech Romney added another pitch to the independents in Ohio: "Now so many of you look at the big debates in this country, and you don't look at them as a Republican or as a Democrat, but first as an American….  You hoped that President Obama would live up to his promise to bring people together to solve big problems, but he hasn't.  And I will."  After campaigning with former president Bill Clinton in New Hampshire Sunday morning, Obama touched down in Florida Sunday afternoon, and was then headed to Ohio in the evening and will arrive in Colorado in the middle of the night. As he has for several stops in the last two days, Romney alluded at his Cleveland event to Obama's comment on Friday that "voting's the best revenge," by saying, "In his closing argument, President Obama asked his supporters to vote for revenge. For revenge. Instead, I ask the American people to vote for love of country." Alluding to her battle with Parkinson' disease and cancer, Romney's wife Ann told the crowd her life was "not always a fairy tale," but introducing Romney she said "One thing I can tell you about this guy is he will always stand by my side... and he'll always do what's right for America." President Obama stopped in Concord, N.H. Sunday to garner support for his re-election bid, as the presidential campaign heads into its final two days. Two hours earlier, only eight miles away from the Romney event, Vice President Joe Biden campaigned in Lakewood, Ohio, accusing Romney and his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin of playing "a con game" in the waning days of the campaign. "They're running away from what they believe."  He appealed to Democrats to get out the vote in the state that decided the 2004 election and whose 18 electoral votes might well decide the election: "We need you Ohio. We need you. We win Ohio, we win this election." In a NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Saturday, Romney was trailing Obama in Ohio 51 percent to 45 percent among likely voters, including those who were undecided yet leaning toward a candidate and those who voted early. The survey found that 3 percent were undecided. Ryan was also campaigning Sunday in Ohio with a stop in Mansfield. As his first event Sunday Ryan, dressed in a Green Bay Packers jacket, arrived at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisc., to attend a tailgate party. Green Bay has ranked among the nation's top presidential campaign TV ad media markets in recent weeks. Meanwhile Obama opened his day by rallying Democrats in the small but vital battleground of New Hampshire which has only four electoral votes of the 270 needed to win the presidency. George W. Bush carried the state in 2000 but Democrat John Kerry won it in 2004 and Obama won it in 2008. "Just as we did when Bill Clinton was president, we gotta ask the wealthiest to pay a little bit more so we can reduce the deficit and still invest in the things we need to grow," Obama told a crowd in Concord, N.H. The president told the crowd that on Saturday night he had consulted with his campaign advisers. "I looked at David Plouffe, some of you know he's my big campaign poo-bah smart guy. But Plouffe and I looked at each other and we said, 'You know what. We're no longer relevant. We're props. Because what's happened is that now the campaign falls on these 25-year old kids who are out there knocking on doors, making phone calls, and then we realized, you know, pretty soon after they do their jobs then they're not relevant either because it's now up to you." And Clinton reminisced with the crowd about his second-place finish in the 1992 New Hampshire primary that kept alive his faltering campaign: "Twenty years and nine months ago, New Hampshire began the chance for me to become president." He added," It's no secret that I never tire of coming here, that I never forget anything that happened here and I'm still looking for someplace I haven't yet been. And it is a very good thing that in the closing days of this campaign you have the chance to send the president back where he belongs to four more years in the White House." Romney will hold his final rally of the campaign Monday night in Manchester, N.H., underscoring again the significance of tis four electoral votes. In his first event Sunday in Des Moines, Iowa, Romney played on the theme of a smaller federal government which doesn't over-promise. "Paul and I have not promised you a bigger check from the government," Romney told the crowd. "And we haven't promised to take from some people to redistribute to you.  We've instead promised to rebuild the economy and to tame the growth of government and restore the principles that made America the greatest nation in the history of the earth." He remind his supporters how vital Iowa is to his campaign strategy: "I need Iowa – I need Iowa so we can win the White House and take back America, keep it strong, make sure we always remain the hope of the earth. I'm counting on you. Will you get the job done?" A new Des Moines Register Iowa poll released Sunday showed Romney trailing Obama 47 percent to 42 percent. Romney will head Sunday afternoon to campaign in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia, in an eleventh-hour foray that came as a surprise to most outside observers. No Republican presidential candidate has won the state since 1988, but a recent Franklin & Marshall poll of Pennsylvania voters has Romney trailing Obama by only 4 percentage points among likely voters. A Romney victory in Pennsylvania would be one of the campaign's biggest surprises. Asked by a reporter Sunday whether it is a little too late for Romney to invest time campaigning in Pennsylvania, Romney senior advisor Kevin Madden said, "No, because this is one of those states that came into view right after the first debate. And as a result it just presented a great opportunity…. And here you are with an incumbent president under 50 (percent in polling). We're essentially tied. We're overperforming in many of these critical areas of the state, like the Philadelphia suburbs, areas like Scranton, southwest Pennsylvania. So we see it as a great opportunity and traveling there today we think can help make a difference. And this is actually the perfect time given that you're 48 hours from people making a decision, given that that they don't have early voting there." In addition to his stop in Pennsylvania, Romney was slated to campaign Sunday in Virginia and Florida. NBC News's Carrie Dann, Garrett Haake and Ali Weinberg contributed to this story