Obama ditches Washington for the road

WASHINGTON — This week, it's Colorado and Arizona. Last week, it was Indiana, Florida and Illinois.

Less than a month into office, President Obama is trying to recapture the energy and common-man feel of the campaign trail to ease the harder task of governing. He's adopting the "permanent campaign" as a major tool for how he conducts his presidency, ditching Washington for the road, early and often.

On Tuesday in Denver, Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus bill into law as leaders of both parties moved to position themselves for a political battle over who was responsible for the economy's problems and whether the legislation was the solution.

Today, the president will appear in Phoenix to roll out a proposal aimed at curbing home foreclosures. Obama's Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, is crafting a plan to stabilize banks and financial institutions.

The president cast the stimulus, the first major piece of legislation passed on his watch, as a crucial milestone.

"I don't want to pretend that today marks the end of our economic problems," he told a crowd before signing the bill. "Nor does it constitute all of what we're going to have to do to turn our economy around. But today does mark the beginning of the end, the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for Americans scrambling in the wake of layoffs."

Obama sat at a wooden table adorned with the presidential seal in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, his left wrist curled inward in his trademark style.

"There you go," he said upon finishing.

The White House staged the ceremony in Denver to underscore how the stimulus might help struggling cities recover. Unemployment in the Denver area stands at 6.3 percent, and home foreclosures here numbered more than 1,000 in December. A state-by-state estimate issued by the White House predicted the stimulus would produce or save 59,000 jobs in Colorado.

In his second consecutive week of taking to the road for campaign-style appearances to build support for his agenda, Obama delivered a speech that signaled the White House effort to seek political advantage. He listed initiatives in the bill, focusing on education and energy conservation, and offered examples of spending that would help specific states.

But even as Obama was signing the bill, Republicans were denouncing it as a waste of money. They asserted that it would not turn the economy around and that they were unified in "disagreement with congressional Democrats and President Obama," in the words of Michael Steele, the Republican national chairman.

"Rising to the moment"

Obama used the Denver appearance to invoke the themes of hope and opportunity that he effectively employed during the presidential campaign.

"Our American story is not, and has never been, about doing easy things," he said. "It's about rising to the moment when the moment is hard."

His tours and town halls, so far, play to his public-speaking skills and high public interest and approval. They may give him more sway over individual members of Congress, especially if he visits their districts.

The trips also give Obama more control over the media message than when he's in Washington.

At the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, where Obama signed the stimulus package into law at a televised event, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter thanked Obama "for the millions of jobs that will be created." A solar-energy executive said it would expand the state's new-energy economy, including his business.

Obama, who in August accepted his party's presidential nomination in Denver, said he was back to make good on his promise to keep the American dream alive.

Personal connections

To sell the stimulus, and to pitch for more aid to banks, the auto industry and homeowners fighting foreclosure, Obama has looked to connect personally with Americans even when he strikes a foreboding tone, warning of "catastrophe" ahead if his plan isn't enacted.

"Obama is presented as this cool, collected, one-step-back-from-the-hype, and yet he's presenting this material to the public in a way that's contrary to that," said Stanley Renshon, a political scientist and psychoanalyst at the City University of New York. "It's the quiet one revving up public anxiety. It's an anomaly."

Obama's also been choosing locations where the policy message has a particular resonance. Mesa, Ariz., where Obama is to unveil a plan to address home foreclosures today, is hit especially hard by the nation's housing woes.

Most of his stops also are in swing states where Democrats are gaining ground.

"It makes sense to spend his political capital while he has it," said Dante Scala, a University of New Hampshire political scientist. "I think the public nowadays sees the president traveling as part of his job, reaching out to voters and so forth."

Compiled from McClatchy newspapers,

The New York Times

and Los Angeles Times reports.