"We are making progress and now we face a choice Ohio," said the president, at a rally at the Schottenstein Center on the campus of The Ohio State University in Columbus. This is a make or break moment for the middle class and we can't turn back now. A former Massachusetts governor who was born in Michigan and whose father was a former auto executive and governor of the state, Romney opposed the bailout, saying a structured bankruptcy could have achieved the same result without the massive cost to the U.S. government. The president also touted his foreign policy achievements, saying that "for the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq." He said that "Osama bin Laden is no longer a threat to this country" and "al Qaeda is on the path to defeat." He then pledged that "by 2014, the war in Afghanistan will be over," and pointed out that Romney had opposed setting a troop withdrawal deadline in the Afghanistan conflict. On the controversial issue of illegal immigration, Obama declared that "it's time to stop denying citizenship to responsible young people just because they're the children of undocumented immigrants." Romney took a hard stance against illegal immigration during the Republican primaries, opposing the president's push for a limited pathway to citizenship for some illegal immigrants. The issue is of importance to the growing Latino electorate in the United States. The Romney campaign quickly reacted to the president's speech. No matter how many lofty campaign speeches President Obama gives, the fact remains that American families are struggling on his watch: to pay their bills, find a job and keep their homes. While President Obama all but ignored his record over three and a half years in office, the American people won't. This November, they will hold him accountable for his broken promises and ineffective leadership," said Romney campaign press secretary Andrea Saul, in a statement. Acknowledging that his re-election bid faces hurdles, the president told those in the audience that "Ohio, this election will be closer than the last." And while he continuously used the 2012 Obama campaign slogan "forward" in his speech, he did hark back to his 2008 slogan, saying "if people ask what this campaign is about, you tell them it's still about hope, it's still about change." After the speech in Ohio, the president departed for Virginia, another crucial battleground state.