Riley urges support for Obama

Mayor Joe Riley took aim at front-runner Mitt Romney and four other Republican presidential candidates today as they prepared for a forum about a block away in downtown Charleston.

The city's longtime Democratic mayor also touted President Barack Obama's accomplishments during his news conference this morning at Marion Square.

"I speak from a city and county where, four years ago, a majority of residents voted for Barack Obama as president," Riley said.

"In about an hour, in an event that is apparently closed to the press (at the Sottile Theatre), candidates will be talking" about why they should be elected to lead our country, Riley said. "We have a leader in this country. He resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and his name is Barack Obama."

Though he was surrounded by members of the S.C. College Democrats, many of whom were not born when Riley won his first term as mayor in 1975, he referred to a previous Republican president.

"Ronald Reagan in 1980 asked the question, 'Are you better off now than you were four years ago?' Let's ask that question now."

He went on to credit Obama with a long list of accomplishments, including reducing unemployment, helping turn the economy around and rescuing the auto industry from failure.

The mayor also aimed squarely at Romney.

"Romney's entire business career was about profits, not jobs," Riley said. He spoke of Romney's tenure with Bain Capital, a leveraged-buyout firm that at one time owned GS Industries, a former owner of Georgetown Steel, which eventually went bankrupt after cutting 1,750 jobs.

"President Obama is committed to increasing jobs," Riley said.

Riley said the Republicans contending for the nomination have conducted campaigns filled with "flak, hyperbole and misinformation" about Obama's record.

Young people should vote for Obama because the Affordable Health Care Act is encouraging people to stay in college, he said. "2.5 million young people who are getting out of college will be able to stay on their parents' health care plans until they are 26," Riley said.

Riley also credited Obama with making the world safer from terrorism by leading the search for and elimination of Osama Bin Laden.

Asked how he felt about so many Republican candidates being in town at once, Riley said he was glad they were spending money here, but he could not think of a better day to formally announce his support for Obama.

I wanted to use this moment to stand up for Barack Obama."

Reach David W. MacDougall at 937-5655, or on Twitter at @davemacdougall.