President Obama launched a stealth campaign in the heartland Monday in an unmarked black bus, complete with dark tinted windows. His Republican rivals were not thrilled or moved by his actions. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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The White House insisted Obama was on an official meet-and-greet to reassure Midwesterners about the struggling economy, but his first stop was Minnesota – home of Rep. Michele Bachmann, one of the Republican presidential front-runners.
“He is doing what Presidents do, which is go out in the country and engage with the American people,” insisted press secretary Jay Carney.
“To suggest that any time the President leaves Washington it’s a political trip would mean that Presidents could never leave unless they were physically campaigning on their own behalf, and he’s not. He’s out here doing his job.”
In which case, taxpayers are on the hook for the three-day bus tour, which includes stops in Iowa and Illinois – two battleground states he needs in his corner to win reelection.
“All he’s doing is campaigning. That’s what this bus tour is, it’s a campaign trip. It’s paid for by taxpayers,” national GOP chairman Reince Priebus fumed to Fox News.
Obama certainly sounded like a candidate as he ripped his Republican and Tea Party opponents for putting politics ahead of patriotism.
“You’ve got to send a message to Washington that it’s time for the games to stop, it’s time to put country first,” he told a crowd in Cannon Falls, Minn.
Later, Obama lunched with some vets and hugged a mom whose son just returned from Afghanistan. “We are so grateful,” he said as the woman teared up.
Republican Oval Office rival Mitt Romney, while stumping in New Hampshire, needled Obama for launching a “Magical Misery bus tour.”
But Obama’s bus looked low-key compared with the carnival-colored “Mitt Mobile” that Romney has used in the past to cruise through the cornfields. And unlike the buses of Bachmann and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Obama’s ride doesn’t look like a rolling campaign bumper sticker.
