Obama's great recovery.

Wisconsin company announces layoffs ahead of Biden arrival

OSHKOSH, Wis. - Bad news will greet Vice President Joe Biden when he arrives in Wisconsin Thursday night. Hours earlier, Oshkosh's largest employer announced that it will lay off 450 employees in January.

Oshkosh Corp., a truck manufacturer with Pentagon contracts, blamed the "difficult decisions" on looming cuts to the nation's defense budget.

"As Oshkosh and others in the defense industry have discussed on numerous occasions, domestic military vehicle production volumes will decline significantly in 2013 due to the reduction in U.S. defense budgets and the fact that military spending is returning to peacetime levels," the company said in a statement. "Unfortunately, these economic factors require Oshkosh to rebalance its defense production workforce starting in January 2013."

The company said the layoffs were not tied to the looming budget cuts set to take effect in January. And it will still have about 3,500 employees in its Oshkosh-based defense division after the job cuts.

The news came hours ahead of Biden's campaign appearance in the city on Friday morning. President Obama carried Winnebago County in 2008, but area Republicans said they believe Mitt Romney will be competitive here on Election Day.

Statewide tracking polls show that while Obama's lead has slipped, he maintains a slight advantage over Romney in Wisconsin.

And a story about Mitt Romney worth retelling:

When Mitt Romney was heading Bain Capital, an employee asked for time off because his daughter had gone missing in NYC. (And you have some idea of what that can mean.)

So, did this cold, distant, greedy One Percenter grant the man's request? NO!!!

Instead, he shut down Bain, flew his thirty employees to NYC where he set up a command post, canvassed the city and distributed tens of thousands of flyers. Within two weeks the man had his daughter back.

Can't speak for you, but this is the kind of man I want occupying the Oval Office, not some petulant man-child with no resume who pouts and sneers as he redistributes America's wealth and power to the rest of the world and who lets his national security staff sit idly by watching live video of 7 hours of attacks on four Americans while doing NOTHING to save any of them with the military assets at his ready command.

Then on to Vegas!

Mitt Romney will not tell that story about himself. Barack Obama would -- repeatedly -- but has no story to tell.