It was hard to miss, one of Mitt Romney's buses rolling through western Virginia, but the Republican presidential candidate wasn't on board. Campaign staffers and Romney supporters worked the phones, and continued their criticism of President Obama for remarks he made during a recent campaign visit in Roanoke.
"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help," Obama told the Roanoke crowd on July 13th. "There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."
What's now known as "the Roanoke incident," has become a rallying cry for Republicans who say the President is out of touch with small business.
Christiansburg Delegate Nick Rush attended a Romney campaign event Tuesday afternoon. "It really does show that he doesn't know how business works in America," Rush said in an interview.
In Dublin, the Romney bus parked outside Collector's Showcase, a frame shop and art gallery that closed in December 2010. Romney supporters, including Pulaski County resident Mickey Weikle worked a phone bank.
"I know the state and the government provides us roads and schools and things like that, but the American people work hard for what we have," she said, "and these small business people work extremely hard."
Democrats say Republicans have taken the President's comments out of context. and his support for small business and America's middle class is strong. "The fact is, when they keep talking about distorting what the President said here in Roanoke," Roanoke Senator John Edwards told us in an interview, "it tells me they have nothing else to talk about."
The Romney bus also visited Wytheville, Blacksburg and Roanoke Tuesday, and the criticism of the President will continue as the bus heads to northern Virginia
