Obama warns as Americans vote

WASHINGTON, Tuesday

President Barack Obama warned that key US elections today “will have an impact for decades to come,” as his Democratic allies braced for a rout fuelled by deep voter anger at the sour economy.

His message came as opinion polls showed fired-up Republicans likely to retake the House of Representatives and slice deep into the Democratic Senate majority, though experts predicted the upper chamber would not change hands.

Late today, the White House said President Obama will hold a press conference on Wednesday, a day after the historic midterm election.

The White House said in a statement that Obama will talk to reporters Wednesday in the White House.

Meanwhile the White House deployed popular First Lady Michelle Obama to Nevada where Senate Majority leader Harry Reid faces a neck-and-neck battle for his seat in the state with the worst US jobless and home foreclosure rates.

“Can we do this? Yes, we can. Yes, we must,” the First Lady shouted, reviving the campaign slogan that buoyed her husband into the White House two years ago.

In an 11th-hour plea to voters in the key battleground of Pennsylvania, Barack Obama warned Republicans would bring back the very policies he blamed for the 2008 economic meltdown that has left nearly one in 10 Americans still out of work. “The bottom line is this: We’re making progress, we’re moving in the right direction,” the president said on WDAS-FM radio. “If you haven’t voted, take that time to vote.

‘‘It will have an impact for decades to come.”

The president, fearing a ballot-box repudiation just two years into his campaign for change, also planned to telephone Democratic volunteers tasked with getting party faithful to the polls, aides said.

The president was notably targeting voters in the critical battlegrounds of Florida, Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania — all key to his 2012 reelection bid — as well as his birth state of Hawaii, the White House said.

Vice President Joe Biden was also campaigning for embattled Democrats, whose fortunes rested on the power of their get-out-the-vote machine to counter Republican energy.

“If the other side is more enthusiastic, we could end up having problems moving this country forward,” warned the president, who boasted that Democratic policies had “rescued the economy” from a second Great Depression.

But Obama’s soaring White House win of 2008 seemed an age away as voters went to pick 37 of 100 Senate slots, 37 of 50 governorships and all 435 House seats in a glum climate heavy with the cares of nearly 10 percent unemployment.

Republicans, electrified by the ultra-conservative Tea Party movement, vowed to reverse Obama’s sweeping health care reforms and promised a budget crunch and tax cuts they said would slash the deficit, ignite growth, and create jobs.

“We just can’t afford another two years like the past two,” Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner, who would all but certainly replace Democrat Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, said in an op-ed in USA Today on Monday. (AFP)