Officials insist presidents trip is on the economy not Republican opponents.
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas The Republican primary race has been re-shaped over the weekend. Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced he is running for the presidency Saturday and Perry seen as a serious challenger to the
perceived
GOP front-runner former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as well as President Obama are all scheduled to be in Iowa Tuesday adding to the Republican omnipresence in the state that Obama has no intention of conceding in 2012.
White House officials have insisted the presidents emphasis this trip is on the economy not his Republican opponents. The bus trip is an official administration event and is not being run by Obamas campaign in Chicago.
During the debt-ceiling debate we were trapped here it felt like for many many weeks White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said Friday.
With the presidents approval rating hovering around 42 and the country still nauseated with Washington in the aftermath of the debt-ceiling deal administration officials acknowledged that Obama might find some criticism even as he returns to states he won in 2008.
He got his first trip out of Washington last week to Michigan and hes looking forward to traveling back home to Illinois to Minnesota and also of course to Iowa which is a place that always has had a special connection with this president and this White House.
In Michigan Obama took a number of shots at Congress saying the country would be worse off if lawmakers were to return to Washington before the end of their scheduled August recess. With Congress out of town for the next few
weeks visiting with constituents hell have a chance to underline that message during his bus trip before he travels to Marthas Vineyard for his own August break.
Pfeiffer said the decision to go through Iowa had nothing to do with the Ames poll.
We sort of have a rule which is just because Republican candidates are campaigning in a certain state that doesnt prevent us from going there because otherwise we would probably travel nowhere Pfeiffer said Friday. So theres no magic to the fact that the straw poll is a few days before our visit.
Still the trip gives Obama a high-profile opportunity to answer the criticisms leveled against him by Perry Bachmann and other GOP candidates for president.
Last Friday White House spokesman Josh Earnest acknowledged to reporters the anger Democrats feel toward the president for what many think was a giveaway to House Republicans in the debt deal. After weeks of insisting that any deal to raise the debt ceiling had to be balanced between spending cuts and tax hikes on businesses and the wealthy Obama ultimately signed a law that included no higher taxes.
I also anticipate that there will be some people who are supporters of the president who voted for him last time who will have some questions for him about the compromises that he was willing to make in the context of this deficit debate Earnest said.
Obama will flew to St. Paul Minn. on Monday morning and held two town-hall events in Cannon Falls Minn. and Decorah Iowa yesterday afternoon where he spent the night.
In making the trip to the somewhat friendly states of Minnesota Iowa and Illinois all of which the president carried in the 2008 presidential contest
Obama is venturing out for what is essentially the first campaign swing of his 2012 reelection effort.
He does so as the Republican campaign to replace him hits a new gear following the Ames straw poll in Iowa and as much of the country frets over an economy teetering on the brink.
For the president the trip is an opportunity to get out of Washington and into the heartland.
Obama is expected to use the three-day trip to highlight his own criticism of Congress and Washington as he increasingly looks to run against Washington in 2012 despite four years on the job in the Oval Office.
White House officials say the president is increasingly eager to spend time outside of Washington as he looks to shake the debt-ceiling hangover.
