Moon Township, Pennsylvania (CNN) - GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan zeroed in on energy jobs and waved a Terrible Towel when he visited Steelers country on Saturday.
In an appeal for Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes, Mitt Romney's running mate warned of another four years of President Barack Obama's energy policies and pointed to a major pocketbook issue to make his point.
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"Look, gas prices are more than double what they were four years ago. Who knows what they're going to be if he got four more years," Ryan said.
Ryan, a seven-term congressman from Wisconsin who also serves as chairman of the House Budget Committee, said the Democratic president will "dust off his national energy tax, which is designed to raise the price and tax on all of our energy."
"Not only are these policies wrong, not only do these policies cost us jobs, not only do they mean that American energy dollars go to the Middle East - they are keeping us from having a boon. They are keeping us from having jobs. They are keeping us from making our pay checks stretch farther," he said.
In September, Obama showed a comfortable lead in Pennsylvania, but two non-partisan polls released this month show the race tightening. Quinnipiac University and Muhlenberg College conducted recent surveys that put the president at 50% and 49%, with Romney trailing four points behind at 46% and 45% respectively.
Ryan campaigned later on Saturday in Ohio.
At a rally with 800 people in a hangar at Pittsburgh International Airport, the vice presidential hopeful also accused the president of engaging in a war on coal.
He warned that Obama will "keep his war on coal going. Over a hundred coal plants are scheduled to close costing us thousands of jobs. Just a month ago we lost 1200 coal jobs in states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia."
This was Ryan's third event in Pennsylvania since he joined the Republican ticket on August 11. Following Saturday's Pennsylvania rally, Ryan also campaigned in neighboring battleground state Ohio.
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