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President Barack Obama attacked the Republican presidential candidates Monday as part of a taxpayer-funded bus tour that the White House insists is not campaign-related. The president’s three-day bus tour through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois is supposed to focus on jobs. But during a town hall meeting in Cannon Falls, Minn., Obama mentioned last Thursday’s Republican debate in Ames, Iowa, and he criticized the candidates for saying they would not accept any deficit-reduction deal that includes tax increases. “I know it’s not election season yet,” Obama said two days after the GOP’s Ames straw poll, “but I just have to mention,...

Big, blocky, black, with painted-out windows, it looks more like a police mortuary van than a symbol of hope arriving on your street.... Part of Obama's message is that it is not his recession, not his fault. It's the blame game.

President Barack Obama is eyeing a 2012 campaign modeled on President Harry Truman’s 1948 successful re-election campaign against Congress. First, however, the White House will send to Capitol Hill an assortment of ‘economy-boosting’ legislation in a package that may include a major overhaul of the tax code. “I’ll be putting forward, when they come back in September, a very specific plan to boost the economy, to create jobs, and to control our deficit,” Obama told a friendly audience at a Decorah, Minnesota campaign-event on Monday. “My attitude is, get it done … [but] if they don’t get it done, then...

President Obama, on the road and seemingly excited to be there, unleashed an assault on Congress and his Republican rivals, accusing them of making the economy worse and threatening their political futures. In nakedly political terms, Obama spoke repeatedly about challenging Congress in next year's elections if they refuse to compromise with him on the economy, and he took thinly veiled swipes at his Republican opponents. As the president embarked on his Midwestern bus tour, stopping in Minnesota and Iowa and small businesses along the way, he fired off his most intense criticism of Congress yet, warning lawmakers they will...

Unleashed from Washington, Obama declares war on House RepublicansBy Sam Youngman - 08/15/11 09:25 PM ET President Obama, on the road and seemingly excited to be there, unleashed an assault on Congress and his Republican rivals, accusing them of making the economy worse and threatening their political futures. In nakedly political terms, Obama spoke repeatedly about challenging Congress in next year's elections if they refuse to compromise with him on the economy, and he took thinly veiled swipes at his Republican opponents. As the president embarked on his Midwestern bus tour, stopping in Minnesota and Iowa and small businesses along...

Reporting from Decorah, Iowa— In the clearest expression yet of his 2012 reelection strategy, President Obama said he would send a jobs package to Congress next month, ask lawmakers to pass it, and campaign against them if they refused. Obama made the declaration in a town-hall-style meeting in Iowa on Monday night. He is facing criticism for not advancing a bold strategy to bolster job growth and his reelection prospects. "I'll be putting forward a very specific plan to boost the economy, to create jobs and to control the deficit," Obama said on the first day of his three-day Midwest...

Add Donald Trump to the list of people that seem to have doubts about President Obama’s national tour. Speaking from his office with Greta van Susteren today, Trump argued that the President takes “more vacations than any human being I’ve ever seen” and that his “fundraising tour” should not fall into the hands of taxpayers, citing a lack of leadership on his part. Trump and Van Susteren went through a long list of topics– from China and OPEC to Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann– but began with the President’s tour. The August vacation, separately, Trump argued “sends a very,...

<p>DECORAH, Iowa – President Obama got into a heated back and forth with a Tea Party activist who demanded to know at the end of a town hall meeting here whether or not Vice President Biden had called members of the Tea Party “terrorists” during the debt ceiling debate.</p>

At a town hall meeting on his campaign-style tour of the Midwest, President Obama claimed that his economic program "reversed the recession" until recovery was frustrated by events overseas. And then, Obama said, with the economy in an increasingly precarious position, the recovery suffered another blow when Republicans pressed the White House for federal spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the national debt limit, resulting in a deal Obama called a "debacle." "We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months...

President Barack Obama is traveling the Midwest on a new $1.1 million bus purchased by the Secret Service, an impenetrable-looking conveyance the size of a cross-country Greyhound, painted all in black, with dark tinted windows and flashing red and blue lights. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan emphasized that the bus wasn’t purchased solely for the president and would be used for other dignitaries in the future. He said the agency has not previously had buses in its fleet and was overdue to get some since it’s had to protect politicians traveling by bus for decades.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Today Obama will go out amongst the peoples on a listen tour to learn (after almost three years) what is bothering the people. No jobs. Then he's gonna finally figure out what the people want: jobs! And then he's going to ask them what they need: jobs! He doesn't need to leave Washington for this. Now, all presidents have used photo-ops to gain favor, but no president in our history has had such little respect for your intelligence as to do something this absurd, to go on a listen tour. You know what they're gonna hope to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is traveling the Midwest on a new $1.1 million bus purchased by the Secret Service, an impenetrable-looking conveyance the size of a cross-country Greyhound, painted all in black, with dark tinted windows and flashing red and blue lights. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan emphasized that the bus wasn't purchased solely for the president and would be used for other dignitaries in the future.

Obama to automakers: ‘You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks’ By Andrew Restuccia - 08/15/11 02:37 PM ET The country’s automakers should ditch their focus on SUVs and trucks in favor of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, President Obama said Monday. “You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks,” Obama said during a town hall forum in Cannon Falls, Minn. “There is a place for SUVs and trucks, but as gas prices keep on going up, you have got to understand the market. People are going to try to save money.” Obama has positioned the revival and reshaping...

All sorts of whackos were in my sleepy little town of Cannon Falls today. The area he was speaking in was surrounded by school buses to hide him from the crowds. Hillsides were guarded by police and secret service. Only way to see him was if you had one of the tickets given out yesterday. Interesting thing about the tickets was that there was supposed to be 500 for the locals to get-first come, first served. The local news said that about 120 were handed out before the crowds were turned away. Wonder what happened to the extra tickets? Anyways,...

Jay Carney, meet Jay Carney.In 2001, the then-Time magazine reporter wrote a snarky piece criticizing President George W. Bush's month-long vacation that was billed as a "Home to the Heartland" tour. But almost exactly 10 years later Carney, now the Obama White House's press secretary, is defending President Barack Obama's Midwest job-creation tour and vacation at Martha's Vineyard."I don't think Americans out there would begrudge that notion that the President would spend some time with his family," claimed Carney at a recent press briefing.But that's exactly what he, as a private citizen working for Time,

As I mentioned in the OOTD today, Barack Obama promised a new focus on jobs for about the 15th time in less than three years, shortly after the conclusion of the debt-ceiling deal. As part of that new focus, Obama plans a bus tour — an unusual mode of travel for an American President, but SOP for a presidential candidate working the crowds to bolster support. But when White House reporters quizzed press secretary Jay Carney about whether Obama or taxpayers would foot the bill for this whirlwind tour, Carney responded that “the air of cynicism is quite thick,” as...