* Obama hits back at Romney in speech at Air Force Academy
* Two-day, three-state tour focused on political fundraising
* Says Democrats have better fiscal record than Republicans
(Adds quotes from California events, details throughout)
By Laura MacInnis
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., May 23 (Reuters) – U.S. President
Barack Obama on Wednesday staunchly defended his foreign policy
record against Republican election-year criticism that he has
overseen a decline in American power in the world.
Addressing graduates of the Air Force Academy in Colorado
Springs, Obama touted his decisions to pull U.S. forces out of
Iraq, wind down the war in Afghanistan and order the raid that
killed Osama bin Laden – a record his campaign hopes will temper
voter discontent about a still fragile economy.
“For a decade, we have labored under the dark cloud of
war. Now, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon. The
end of these wars will shape your service and it will make our
military stronger,” he told the class of 1,073 uniformed cadets,
including 234 women, on the military school’s football field.
Mitt Romney, Obama’s presumptive challenger in the Nov. 6
election, has accused the Democratic president of weakening
America on the world stage, calling last year’s exit from Iraq
premature and the timeline to leave Afghanistan ill-conceived.
Last weekend at a NATO summit in Chicago, Obama acknowledged
there were risks in withdrawing U.S. and allied forces from
Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
But at the Air Force Academy he pushed back against Romney’s
charge that America had lost ground under his leadership.
“Let’s start by putting aside the tired notion that says our
influence has waned, that America is in decline. We’ve heard
that talk before,” he said, declaring that his policies were
seeding the way to a new “American Century” – an expression
Romney has used to describe his own foreign policy vision.
FUNDRAISING RACE
Obama’s speech came at the start of a three-state political
tour focused on raising funds for his re-election campaign.
His two-day excursion – spanning Colorado, California and
Iowa – includes a series of fundraisers set to generate more
than $3 million, plus his third big campaign rally of the 2012
season, planned for Des Moines on Thursday.
Speaking at a downtown Denver hotel after leaving Colorado
Springs, Obama turned his focus to Romney’s record as a private
equity executive, saying the former Massachusetts governor had
“drawn the wrong lessons” from his time at Bain Capital.
“What Governor Romney doesn’t seem to get is that a healthy
economy doesn’t just mean a few folks maximizing their profits
through massive layoffs or busting unions,” Obama said. “Why is
he running around with the same bad ideas that brought our
economy to collapse this last time out?”
Obama, whose chances of re-election are closely tied to what
happens with the U.S. economy, also drew attention to a report
showing federal spending has grown slowly under his watch and
under other Democrats, rising faster in past Republican
administrations.
“I don’t know how they’ve been bamboozling folks into
thinking that they are the responsible, fiscally disciplined
party,” he said of Republicans. “They run up these wild debts
and then, when we take over we’ve got to clean it up.”
He returned to the foreign policy theme at a late Wednesday
fundraiser in Redwood City, California – near Palo Alto – with a
sharper aim at Romney than on display at the Air Force Academy.
“My opponent … said it was “tragic” to end the war in
Iraq, and won’t set a timeline for ending the war in
Afghanistan. I have set a timeline. Our coalition partners and
the Afghans agree with me. I intend to keep it,” Obama said.
“After a decade of war that’s cost us thousands of lives and
over a trillion dollars, the nation we need to build is our
own.”
On Thursday, Obama is due to hold another fundraiser in San
Jose, California, then head to Iowa to speak about clean energy
at a wind turbine blade manufacturer before the campaign rally
at the state fairgrounds in Des Moines.
(Writing by Alister Bull and Matt Spetalnick; editing by Jim
Loney, Mohammad Zargham, John Stonestreet)
