WASHINGTON – Fighting to win over unhappy American voters, President Barack Obama and his Republican challengers are seizing on one of the most potent issues this election season: the struggling middle class and the widening gap between rich and poor.
Highlighted by the Occupy movement and fanned by record profits on Wall Street at a time of stubborn unemployment, economic inequality is now taking center stage in the 2012 presidential campaign, emphasized by Obama and offering opportunities and risks for him and his GOP opponents as both sides battle for the allegiance of the angst-ridden electorate.
For Obama, who calls boosting middle-class opportunity “the defining issue of our time,” the question is whether he can bring voters along — while parrying GOP accusations of class warfare — even though he’s failed to solve the country’s economic woes during his first term in office.
For Republicans, Obama’s potential vulnerability gives them an opening, but they also must battle perceptions that their policies favor the wealthy at a time when voters support Obama’s call to raise taxes on the very rich. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has already made clear he’ll resist Obama’s attempts to capitalize on the issue, adopting the language of Occupy Wall
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