US election: Barack Obama says America faces choice between him or return to George W Bush Senior advisers to Bill Clinton's presidential campaigns this week urged him to offer "minimal discussion of the recovery and jobs created and maximal empathy for the challenges people face." The President's ratings in national and swing-state polls have slipped after a miserable fortnight in which he was also overtaken by Mr Romney in the fund-raising stakes for the first time. His speech came moments after a rival rally by Mr Romney, his Republican challenger, elsewhere in Ohio, which is poised to yet again be a crucial battleground that could decide the result of the election. "Talk is cheap - actions speak very loud," Mr Romney said. If you want to see the results of his economic policies, look around Ohio, look around the country. People are hurting. The former Massachusetts governor claimed that "almost everything the President has done" had made it more difficult for firms to hire workers and had obstructed America's economic recovery. Mr Obama leads in Ohio by 1.8 percentage points, according to a RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls. The Midwestern state has sided with the losing presidential candidate only once since 1944. Mr Romney's campaign continued to hammer Mr Obama for saying during a press conference last week that "the private sector is doing fine," despite the ongoing economic difficulties. An attack advertisement released by Mr Romney yesterday featured the President's remark being repeated after statistics detailing the extent of America's unemployment crisis flashed onscreen. The clip was virtually identical to a 2008 Obama advertisement attacking John McCain, his Republican opponent, for saying "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Mr McCain's comment, at the height of the financial meltdown, was credited with dealing a hefty blow to his election prospects. Mr Obama said yesterday "there will be no shortage of gaffes" in the campaign, adding: "You may have heard I recently made my own unique contribution to that process."