Obama campaign sets up battleground bus tour
President Barack Obama places an order at The Varsity restaurant, Tuesday, June 26, 2012, in Atlanta. / (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is ramping up a fresh phase of his re-election bid with a bus tour next week, focusing more on direct engagement with voters and less on ritzy fundraisers, the Obama campaign confirms to CBS News.
Mr. Obama's two-day road trip through Pennsylvania and Ohio — both are key battleground states in the November election — kicks off July 5, a campaign official said. It will be the president's first bus tour of the 2012 campaign.
While Mr. Obama has been running for re-election for months, his efforts thus far have focused largely on hauling in cash from supporters in dozens of fundraising events across the country as his campaign seeks to compete with energized Republican donors. He spent the early part of this week on a two-day, four-state fundraising blitz that brought in more than $5 million.
The president will still headline campaign fundraisers through the fall, but the official said Mr. Obama's schedule would start to include more of a mix of campaign rallies and other events focused on speaking directly to a wide swath of voters in the states Mr. Obama needs most in order to hold the White House.
Further underscoring his strategy switch was his campaign's announcement this week that Jennifer Psaki, a former senior White House aide, was joining the president's re-election team as traveling press secretary.
Ohio and Pennsylvania, with 38 electoral votes between them, are crucial to the president's re-election bid. Mr. Obama won both states in 2008, but Republican rival Mitt Romney is expected to make a strong play for each.
Just over four months from Election Day, Mr. Obama aides consider Ohio a toss-up state but believe Pennsylvania is leaning in the president's favor. Romney took a bus tour of his own through Ohio and Pennsylvania earlier this month.
Mr. Obama has turned to bus tours before when he needed to reconnect with voters. Last summer, after a bruising fight with congressional Republicans that brought the government to the brink of fiscal default, the president hit the road for a Midwestern bus tour aimed at refocusing his presidency on the economic issues affecting the middle class. He followed it up with a fall trip through Virginia and North Carolina.
Rolling through swing states on a campaign bus allows Mr. Obama to engage in more of the informal, retail-style politics that can be hard to achieve in the highly scripted White House. Between his scheduled events, the president is sure to make surprise visits to restaurants and small businesses or stop to greet voters gathered on the side of the road to watch his motorcade.
Mr. Obama's itinerary for the bus trip was still being finalized, but the official said the president probably would hold events in northern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The official insisted on anonymity in order to discuss details of the trip ahead of the campaign's official announcement.
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why is he running?
By his own standards he he a one term president?
the king has no clothes'
CBS and the E! channel are covering for this failure
I am doing much better than in 2008 - the economy has certainly improved for me, my family, and my friends. Because of this improvement, I think President Obama has earned a second term.
With respect, you sound like some kind of welfare leech. Be a man and stop complaining - stop blaming the weather, the president, the traffic, the time, and so on for your problems.
President Obama can do nothing about the slowdown in Europe and China and the drag they cause on our economy. Most people agree with me according to polls - they know Romney could not do any better because they know that presidents do not control the economy.
I know Romney hopes that the economy does not improve. I agree with you - President Obama needs to "smear" Romney with the Truth.
As for accomplishments, I am one of them - our business has turned around from 2008. Since I feel that President Obama has earned a second term, I will vote for him in November.
I agree - Romney is a Mexican and should go back to where he came from...