Barack Obama kicks off re-election campaign
Barack Obama. Photo: Getty Images
Multimedia
Video
President Obama sings Al Green: Let's stay together in 2012
Obama sings a little Al Green at Apollo Theatre, New York on January 19th. Credit: www.youtube.com/TheObamaDiary
The battle to claim the ideological heart of America began in earnest on Wednesday as Democrats and Republicans set out starkly contrasting visions of how to address the nation's bloated finances and put the country back to work.
Hours after delivering an intensely political and populist State of the Union address, President Barack Obama took to the road on a three-day tour of five politically crucial states that pollsters say will very likely decide the outcome of November's election.
Speaking at an engineering plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Mr Obama hammered home his message of investing to create a "fair America" by doubling taxes on millionaires who he said were being "subsidised" by tax breaks brokered by elite vested interests in Washington.
"We're not going to go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing and bad debt and phoney financial promises," he said, repeating his attack on the banks that caused the 2008 financial crisis, "That's not how America was built and we're not going to go back to that."
As the US national debt passed $15 trillion, Mr Obama's prescription for a brighter future was greater investment in training, higher spending on infrastructure and tax incentives for American companies and manufacturers to bring jobs back home from abroad.
“Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans?” Mr Obama asked in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. “Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else – like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t do both.”
The Democrat plan for lifting America out of its worst economic slump since the 1930s finds its mirror image in the Republican Party which slammed Mr Obama's speech for "dividing" America and "stifling" the entrepreneurial spirit that made America great.
Governor Mitch Daniels, a pragmatic Republican from Indiana that many in his party had hoped would run for president until he demurred, accused Mr Obama of spending America into a "dead end of debt"
Arguing for lower taxes and less government interference, Mr Daniels said the only way out of America's current bind was to slash regulations, downsize the government and champion the ideals of business and profit.
"The only way up for those suffering tonight, and the only way out of the dead end of debt into which we have driven, is a private economy that begins to grow and create jobs, real jobs, at a much faster rate than today," he said.
Although almost all Republicans are in ideological agreement on this issue, the party's broader message has been drowned out in recent weeks by one of the most divisive and angry races for the presidential nomination that anyone can remember.
As Mr Obama spoke in Iowa, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, the two front-runners were feuding in Florida, spending millions of dollars on advertisements to assassinate each other's characters in what one Republican strategist called "a circular firing-squad".
The latest opinion polls showed that Mr Gingrich, the maverick former House Speaker who is seen as a loose cannon by his party's establishment, is now the clear favourite to win the crucial Florida primary on January 31.
If Mr Gingrich were to claim the biggest prize in the Republican primary race so far – Florida offers 50 delegates and will be a key battleground state in the general election – it would be a disastrous development for Mr Romney, the long-standing front-runner.
The Quinnipiac University poll of likely Florida primary voters yesterday found that Mr Gingrich had stolen a 6 point lead over Mr Romney since his South Carolina victory last weekend, with an average of polls putting Mr Gingrich's lead at about 4.5 per cent.
Only a week ago Mr Romney, a multi-millionaire venture capitalist and the establishment favourite, had led by 11 points but suffered from a series of poor debate performances and the negative publicity over the news that he paid less than 15 per cent tax on his annual earnings of $21 million.
A new clip funded by Restore Our Future, a so-called 'Super PAC' backing Mr Romney, yesterday attacked Mr Gingrich's frequent attempts to share credit for the successes of President Ronald Reagan, the sainted father of the modern Republican party.
"Reagan criticised Gingrich," its narrator says, quoting him as saying: "Newt's ideas would cripple our defence programme". It adds: "On leadership and character, Gingrich is no Ronald Reagan".
With the contest growing increasingly bitter, party establishment figures – already nervous at the prospect of the volatile Mr Gingrich snatching the nomination – pleaded with the two camps to tone down their attacks to avoid assisting Mr Obama's re-election.
"Stop! Stop!" said Karl Rove, George W. Bush's former top adviser, during an appearance on Fox News. "Have disagreements, but realise you're only doing damage to your own chances for the general election if we come limping out of here with a wounded nominee."
- Peter Foster
© Telegraph.co.uk
