Romney Targets Blue-Collar Voters

Mitt Romney has gone all-out to win over working-class voters ahead of today's critical Super Tuesday primary in Ohio. The candidate, fighting back against Rick Santorum's appeal to this vital demographic, spoke surrounded by heavy equipment at campaign events in factories yesterday, focusing squarely on the economy, and ignoring the social issues that appear to have cost Santorum his lead, the New York Times finds.

"I look at this campaign right now, and I see a lot of folks talking about lots of things, but what we need to talk about to defeat Barack Obama is getting good jobs, and scaling back the size of government, and that's what I do," Romney told a rally in Ohio. "What I know is the economy. I've spent my life in the real economy. I understand why jobs come and why they go." At a rally elsewhere in the state, Santorum spoke about manufacturing instead of social issues, urging voters to choose "a guy who grew up in a steel town in western Pennsylvania who no one gave any chance to be standing here in Ohio in March." (More Mitt Romney stories.)