Harley Laws wants to take his 4-year-old son to a Barack Obama rally.

The two were on hand Sept. 17 to welcome Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden to Maumee. The boy, also named Harley, wore a “Kids for Obama” button.

“I thought it would be neat for him to see and be a part of it,” Laws said.

Making the Obama dream come true for the father and son should be easy. Ohio is once again in the spotlight and candidates are scheduling frequent stops in Ohio, particularly Northwest Ohio.

“Ohio is going to decide who the next president is; you hear that every year, but it is true,” said Ashlie Dellitt, field organizer for Maumee. “Our strategy is simple. We want to elect Barack and Joe Biden on Nov. 4, and to do that we have to win Ohio. And to win Ohio, we have to talk to voters.”

When Biden was in Maumee, he talked to voters, mocking presidential candidate John McCain’s comment that, “We have made great progress economically during the Bush years.”

“I could walk from here to Cleveland and I wouldn’t run into a single person who thought we made great economic progress … unless the man was John McCain,” he said.

Biden said the Republican on Sept. 16 once again stated that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.” Two hours later, McCain said, “We are in a great conflict.” Biden poked fun at the irony.

“If John cares so much, cares so about this mess, where was he?” Biden said. “Where was he a month ago? Where was he five years ago? I will tell you where he was. He was bragging to the folks on Wall Street, the executives, who now he calls greedy, he was bragging to them how we were going to shred the regulations that fetters them, that ties them down.”

Biden said this country isn’t in a mental recession or a “nation of a bunch of whiners” as suggested by McCain’s former adviser Phil Gramm.

“Who are the whiners here, folks? Don’t tell me these people who work hard their whole lives, who play by the rules, who did everything they were supposed to do, and woke up one day and have no job or have no pension because of the fact that the government wasn’t on their side.”

Biden said no one stood with these folks, “but I promise you, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will.”

The senator also promised to create 2 million jobs by reinvesting in infrastructure like highways, bridges, roads, roads and train systems, in addition to 5 million new jobs related to green energy.

“The middle class is getting kicked in the teeth; we value them, the Republicans don’t value them.”

Biden defined middle class as any family who could not go without two paychecks and stay out of financial trouble.

The Obama/Biden ticket wants to keep jobs in America, and instead of spending $20 billion annually giving tax breaks to people who send jobs overseas, they want to spend that money here.

“Spare me about how Republicans are good managers of our money. This isn’t your father’s Republican party. This is a different group of cats out there.”

Biden said Republicans have driven the national debt to $8 trillion, and it’s a “flat lie” that Democrats are going to raise taxes for the middle class.

“The one thing Barack and I want to do, the one thing, that would measure the success of our administration is whether, when it is all over, moms and dads can turn to their kids and say, ‘If you work hard, if you are honest, if you play by the rules, if you love your country, anything is possible.’ ”