COLUMBUS – Labor Day provided a good illustration of how important Ohio is to the candidates in the presidential election. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton made competing holiday pitches in northeast Ohio on Monday, setting the stage for a critical month in their testy campaign.
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The two campaigns arrived in Cleveland within hours of each other. The airplanes of Trump and running mate Mike Pence, were parked on the tarmac as Clinton and her vice presidential pick, Tim Kaine, arrived in Clinton’s new blue-and-white Boeing 737 campaign plane emblazoned with her slogan, “Stronger Together” at the city’s airport.
It was a near-encounter that even forced the Trump press corps to the side of the road as Clinton’s motorcade whizzed by.
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Meeting with reporters, Trump appeared to pivot away from his hard line position on immigration, saying, “I’m all about jobs now.” The Republican real estate mogul said immigrants in the country illegally may not need to return to their countries or origin to obtain legal status, appearing to contradict his past positions.
Trump and Pence attended a round-table discussion with union members, where Trump warned that America’s manufacturing jobs are “going to hell.”
Clinton powered through a coughing fit at a Labor Day festival at a Cleveland park, sharply criticizing Trump’s recent trip to Mexico as “an embarrassing international incident.”
Democrats were fanning out across battleground states, dispatching Kaine and Vice President Joe Biden to Pittsburgh, former President Bill Clinton to Detroit and Cincinnati and one-time Clinton primary rival Bernie Sanders to New Hampshire.