NEWTON — Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards renewed harsh criticisms of President Bush’s record on economic performance and said the president has not represented the interests of the American people.

Edwards spoke to a crowd of about 1,300 people during a town hall meeting in Newton in an effort to change the campaign focus to domestic issues.

The typical family, he said, has been under a squeeze in recent years, and the president hasn’t done anything to alleviate the problem.

“If we had a president and vice president in the White House who will fight as hard for you and your jobs as hard as they fight for their jobs, then American workers can compete with anybody,” he said.

Reports released on Friday by the U.S. Labor Department increased concerns about how quickly the economy has recovered. According to thereport, 96,000 jobs were created in September, a lower-than-expected total.

Despite the creation of new jobs, Edwards said, the effort wasn’t enough to accommodate an estimated 150,000 new people entering the work force. Echoing points from the vice presidential debate, Edwards continued to hammer that Bush has been the first president to have a net job loss during his term.

Bush has defended his policies, saying they have helped to create more than 1.8 million jobs during the last 13 months and helped reduce the unemployment rate to a point where it is lower than it was in the 1990s.

Bush-Cheney spokesman Dan Ronayne said that many of the president’s policies have been working and that the president will continue to work to help Americans find jobs.

“President Bush pro-growth policies are working,” Ronayne said. “The president’s not going to be satisfied until every worker in America who wants a job has one.”

Ronayne said a Kerry-Edwards administration would create more regulation, more taxes and more lawsuits, which would put more strain on the average worker.

Edwards said Bush has attempted to create an image of an economy that was much stronger than it actually is.

“They’re going to try every way they know to put lipstick on this pig,” he said. “You can put all the lipstick you want on, but at the end of the day, it’s still a pig.”

Brenda Breckenridge of Newton said she’s felt the effects of the past economic crunch. Breckenridge — one of many employees laid off by Newton-based Maytag — said she has been worried about the president’s plan to help combat job loss and outsourcing.

“I want someone in the White House who believes in the values of hard work because of the job, and not because someone advised him to talk about it because of an election year,” she said.

In July, Maytag closed a plant in Galesburg, Ill., and then moved part of its operation to Mexico, sending shockwaves throughout the company.

Many workers were concerned the plant would close its operations in Newton as well. A month before that, the company had announced it would layoff more than 1,000 employees.

Warren Braun, an employee at the Maytag plant in Newton, said the effects have been detrimental to the community. If it wasn’t for his position as a board member for the local union, United Auto Workers 997, he said he would have been laid off with many of the other workers.

“Before Bush came in, there was over 2,300 people working at Maytag,” Braun said. “Now we’ve lost over 1,000 jobs, and it’s devastating to the community; it’s devastating to the state and the nation.”