President Barack Obama said he wanted to rekindle the “passion and energy” of his 2008 campaign as he joined supporters on a conference call that capped a daylong organizing effort for his 2012 re-election bid.
“We can’t go backwards,” he said on the call last night, which was also broadcast on his campaign website. “We have to preserve the progress that we’ve made and take it to the next level, and that means that we’re going to have to mobilize.”
The campaign was kicked off earlier in the day with a video on his website and an e-mail to supporters. His campaign also filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to declare its organizing intentions.
Obama, 49, will face a different set of challenges running as an incumbent with a record than he did in 2008, when he was able to draw on the enthusiasm of many young and first-time voters who helped make him the nation’s first black president.
“We may not have the exact same newness that we had in 2008,” he said on the call. “But that core spirit about what this campaign has always been about, I think, is still there.”
Obama counseled patience when one supporter asked what she should tell fellow Democrats frustrated that he hasn’t fulfilled all the promises made in the 2008 race. In a democracy, changes aren’t made easily or quickly, he said.
“The first thing is to remind people what we have accomplished,” he said. “We have probably had the most successful legislative initiative of any president over the last 50 years.”
Early Start
Obama isn’t facing any serious competition for renomination by the Democrats, and he’ll have the advantage of the presidential stage in getting his message out. Still, he sought to rally his core backers to begin organizing now.
“I can’t spend 24 hours a day campaigning like I did in ‘07 and ‘08,” he said. “I’ve got to take care of business here as well. In some ways, I’m going to need you even more this time than I did last time.”
Yesterday’s filing with the FEC allows Obama to begin fundraising and other organizational efforts for winning a second White House term. The campaign will have its headquarters in Chicago, the president’s adopted hometown and base for his 2008 victory.
The Republican National Committee responded to Obama’s announcement with a critique of his term in office.
“Obama has shown a distinct lack of leadership on the budget debate,” the RNC said in a release. He chose “politics over substance by sitting on the sidelines” on major questions about the future of government programs.
Foreign, Domestic Challenges
The president is beginning his campaign as he confronts foreign policy challenges that include the turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa. There is also continued economic stress at home.
The national unemployment rate is projected to be 8.3 percent in 2012, according to a median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News in March. While that would be down from the current 8.8 percent figure, no president since World War II has been re-elected with the jobless rate higher than 7.5 percent.
Obama likely will give a formal speech on his re-election bid at a later date. He is scheduled to make an April 14 fundraising stop in Chicago, where donors four years ago provided him some of his earliest funding. Additional April fundraising events are being planned in California and New York.
Campaign Money
Analysts say they expect the 2012 presidential election to cost $3 billion, about 50 percent more than the $2 billion the Federal Election Commission said was spent in 2008 by candidates, the political parties and outside groups. Obama raised a record $745 million in 2007 and 2008 for his presidential campaign and was the first major-party nominee to reject public financing for the general election.
Jim Messina, a former White House deputy chief of staff, has moved to Chicago to run the campaign. Also back in Chicago to handle the campaign’s messaging and strategy is David Axelrod, a former senior Obama adviser in the White House.
The president’s job approval was at 42 percent in a Quinnipiac University poll taken March 22-28 with an error margin of plus-or-minus 2.2 percentage points. That was down from 46 percent in a March 3 Quinnipiac survey and at its lowest level in the university’s surveys on Obama.
Also, 50 percent of the registered voters surveyed by the Hamden, Connecticut-based polling institute said Obama didn’t deserve re-election in 2012, compared with 41 percent who said he should receive a second four-year term.
Republican Contenders
In a hypothetical race with an unidentified Republican opponent, voter sentiment was statistically tied: 36 percent for Obama, 37 percent for a Republican.
The Iowa caucuses, the first contest in the nomination process, are tentatively scheduled for Feb. 6, 2012.
The Republican nomination contest remains wide open, with potential candidates ranging from former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to real estate developer Donald Trump.
Other prospective Republican candidates include former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who is stepping down as the Obama-appointed ambassador to China in April.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has expressed interest in the Republican race, as has former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. The lack of a clear frontrunner has encouraged others, including Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a Tea Party favorite, to position themselves for potential runs.
--With assistance from Roger Runningen and Jonathan D. Salant in Washington. Editors: Joe Sobczyk, Mark McQuillan.
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