President Barack Obama will conclude a two-day campaign bus tour in Pittsburgh Friday afternoon with a public event at Carnegie Mellon University.
Mr. Obama’s “Betting on America” tour will make stops in Maumee, Parma and Sandusky, Ohio before coming to Pennsylvania. Ben LaBolt, the national press secretary for the Obama campaign, said the president will speak to the need to continued investment in America.
“Throughout the trip, he’ll talk with voters in their communities about what he’s done to bring the economy back from the brink,” said LaBolt, “from investing in manufacturing to doubling down on the American worker, to saving the auto industry and encouraging companies to bring jobs back to America.”
Manufacturing activity nationwide declined in June for the first time in three years.
Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman Jim Burn said he’s excited about the president’s visit to Pittsburgh. He recalled in 2008 then presidential candidate Barack Obama promised to turn around manufacturing.
“President Obama knows that if we’re going to stay number one, if we’re going to outcompete the rest of the world, then we need to outbuild them,” Burn said. “That’s why President Obama has always been on American workers and manufacturers. He knows what they can achieve, and since March 2010 Pennsylvania alone has added more than 10,000 new manufacturing jobs.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pennsylvania had 567,900 manufacturing jobs in May 2012, compared to 611,400 when Mr. Obama took office in January 2009.
Friday will mark Mr. Obama’s fourth visit to Carnegie Mellon — his third as president, in addition to a campaign stop in 2008.
“Pittsburgh in many ways has been a success story for many other cities and towns,” LaBolt said. “It’s figured out how to get back on its feet in the new economy.”
The campaign press secretary added that the president is visiting CMU because it represents the type of investments he supports.
“To build an economy that lasts we need to invest in research and development to spur innovation and we need to invest in education,” LaBolt said. “We need to insure the skills that workers have match the jobs on the market.”
Presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made his own bus tour in eastern Pennsylvania in June.
The CMU event is open to the public. Tickets were distributed Tuesday afternoon at the Pittsburgh Obama headquarters in the Strip District.
