JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Armed with with a megaphone, protesters chanted for four more years of President Obama.
Hundreds crammed inside the Jacksonville Landing to watch the high-profile Romney/Ryan campaign stop in Jacksonville. Meanwhile outside, a small group hoped to have a big impact at the event.
"We don't like the fact that he's flip flopping on a lot of issues. Tell us who you really are Mitt Romney," said President Obama supporter, Angie Dixon.
Hours before Romney ever arrived in town, a group of local democrats gathered to take a stand against the Republican ticket. Democratic State Rep. Mia Jones organized local seniors and veterans spread the message that a Romney White House would hurt Floridians.
"These are not the actions of a ticket that understands the concerns of the middle class and of the voters who are working to become the middle class," said Rep. Jones.
Melanie Hatfield thinks Medicare is a central issue this election season. "I began to collect Medicare this year. Wow, what a difference that has made in my health insurance cost."
The retiree shared how she thinks the Romney/Ryan plan would affect her and thousands of other Florida seniors. "If there's one thing I know, it's that the voucherized plan the Romney/Ryan ticket is proposing would drive me and many seniors like me into financial ruin."
Not long after the rally concluded, President Obama's campaign sent out a response which stated, “In Jacksonville, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan stuck to their tried-and-true strategy of launching personal and debunked attacks against President Obama. They blamed him for a credit downgrade that was caused by Congressional gridlock that Paul Ryan and his Republican colleagues helped engineer and for automatic defense cuts when the only thing standing in the way of preventing them is the refusal by Congressional Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, to ask for one more dime from millionaires and billionaires. What we didn’t hear from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan is the truth about their policies and how they would turn Medicare into a voucher system, make deep cuts to critical investments like education, and ask the middle class to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This isn’t a recipe for strength—it’s a recipe for disaster for America’s middle class.”
