“And we know that journey is not done yet.”
Coatless and tieless, an upbeat Obama has spent three days in Iowa this week, his longest sustained campaigning in any one state yet, as he looks to win six of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.
He has been speaking and drinking and eating his way through the state — “Who else wants one?” he yells to a small group of onlookers at a sno cone stand in Denison — because in Iowa, politics is all about winning over voters one by one, by word of mouth. Obama’s higher personal favorability ratings over Republican Mitt Romney also could be a big plus in places like Iowa — especially at a time when voters in the most competitive states are seeing a slew of negative ads daily and as the Republican challenger works to undercut the president’s strength.
Four years after the voters here sent him on his way to the White House, he’s drawing loud and enthusiastic crowds; a man in the Waterloo one shouts, “Four more beers!” resurrecting the cheer from a night earlier at the fair when Obama bought a round. And he seems remarkably at ease for an incumbent president facing a spirited challenge at a time of 8.3 percent unemployment.
Obama, it seems, has been everywhere.
He dropped by the Coffee Connection in Knoxville, where he chatted up the owner, a Republican running for local office. He hit the gym at Aspen Active off Fleur Drive in Des Moines, near his airport hotel. He bought a Bud Lite at a bar in college town Cedar Falls. In Cascade, Obama walked into a high school library where teachers were getting ready for the upcoming school year. “What do you want me to know?” he asked, opening up their discussion about education policy for questions.
He made a surprise visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, a must-stop for any politician looking for votes. “I still have pictures of me and Sasha at the fair,” Obama told one of the fair’s organizers after buying an admission ticket and picking up a navy blue state fair baseball cap, emblazoned with this year’s slogan, “Nothing Compares.” He took a picture with the fair queen, ate a pork chop with his hands and drank a Bud Lite, all while a TV crew trails him for footage in an upcoming campaign ad.
In Dubuque, first lady Michelle Obama joined Obama at a campaign rally for the first time in months. Mrs. Obama asked him if he got a “fried Twinkie” at the state fair and then vouched for him, calling him the “son of a mother who struggled” and the grandson of a woman who watched as men she trained were promoted ahead of her.
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