In a August conference call with The Lantern, President Barack Obama hinted a Central Ohio return before the Nov. 6 election, and he’s scheduled to make good on that promise Monday afternoon.
“I expect that if you’re not completely tired of me, you’re gonna see me in Ohio State again,” he said.
According to an Obama for America Ohio release, Obama is set to arrive in Columbus around 3 p.m. and speak at Schiller Park, which is about 15 minutes from campus in German Village.
The “grassroots” campaign event will be open and free to the public with tickets that were distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis at five Obama for America Ohio field offices. Doors are scheduled to open at 2 p.m. Monday.
The entrance to the event at Schiller Park will be on the corner of 3rd Street and East Whittier Street.
Shuttles are scheduled to run to the park from the Columbus Commons located downtown at 160 South High St. for the event.
This will be Obama’s second time in Columbus since he kicked off his re-election campaign in the Schottenstein Center in May. He also spoke at Capital University Aug. 21 to a crowd of about 3,300 focusing mainly on student loan debt and the important of education.
But before he spoke at Capital, he swung by OSU’s campus for lunch at Sloppy’s Diner at the Ohio Union.
Obama has previously commented on the importance of youth votes in the upcoming November election.
Obama said in response to a conference call question from The Lantern that the Ohio youth vote is one reason he has visited OSU’s campus four times in two years.
“If Ohio is doing well, then America is gonna do well,” he said.
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was in Powell, Ohio, Aug. 25, a suburb about 30 minutes from campus. He spoke about small business and the economy to a crowd of about 5,000 at Village Green Park.
Romney’s last Ohio stop was in Painesville Sept. 14, where he talked about economic growth.
Obama’s appointed United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice made a visit to Ohio Stadium for the Buckeyes’ Sept. 15 game against California.
In an interview with The Lantern, Rice reflected on the Tuesday death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya.
She said she was “very, very sad” about the deaths, and called it a “tragedy.”
Romney’s vice presidential running mate Paul Ryan made a visit to the ‘Shoe during the first OSU football game of the season against the Miami Redhawks, his alma mater, on Sept. 1.
Current national polls rank 49 percent of the American population in favor of the Obama and 46 percent in favor of the Romney according to a recent poll on Politico from CBS News and the New York Times.
With such a close election, Ohio as a swing state has become a battleground for each of the candidates.
The most recent Politico poll has placed Romney with a 47 percent favor in Ohio and Obama at 46 percent. These close numbers may be the driving force behind the candidate’s frequent visits to the Buckeye State. The polls state that 3 percent are undecided and 3 percent have a choice of “other.”