Obama says now is time to keep country, economy moving forward, not backward

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Obama makes case for voting Democratic in November

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — President Barack Obama implored heartland voters Thursday to believe his economic policies averted impending disaster, pushing a hard-to-swallow message at a time when unemployment still hovers near double-digit levels.

“What is absolutely clear is we’re moving in the right direction, we’re headed in the right direction,” Obama said at an electric truck factory here, before a pair of campaign appearances for Senate Democratic candidates in Missouri and Nevada.

Obama jabbed Republicans who are threatening to swamp his party in the upcoming elections, though none by name. “There are some people who make the political calculation that it is better to say no to everything than lend a hand,” he said.

After his tour and brief remarks at Smith Electric Vehicles, Obama headed out to raise money for Democratic Senate hopeful Robin Carnahan. Then he was flying to Nevada to campaign for embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Reid is in trouble in his bid for a fifth term, with joblessness sky-high in Nevada and a sitting president’s party typically poised to lose congressional seats during midterm elections. Carnahan, Missouri’s secretary of state, represents a chance for a much-needed Democratic pickup of the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Kit Bond.

For both Democrats, Obama aimed to energize supporters with a partisan message that he’s been sharpening and honing of late — turning the man who pledged during his campaign to bridge partisan divides into a president who has begun playing into them.

For instance, the president planned to repeat his attacks on Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who had to apologize for apologizing to BP PLC, the primary owner of the blown-out well spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, and House Minority Leader John Boehner, who contends his metaphor likening the financial crisis to an “ant” is being twisted by Democrats.

Obama also has been trying to get voters to buy a message he himself acknowledges is a tough sell — that things would be a lot worse if last year’s $862 billion stimulus bill hadn’t been passed. Obama plans additional remarks on the economy on Friday while in Nevada, at the University of Nevada.

Such pairing of official presidential events with campaign appearances has another benefit, too: it lets the White House bill the candidates’ campaigns for far less of the president’s travel costs, otherwise covered by taxpayers.

In Kansas City, Obama’s tone was sometimes aggrieved as he suggested he wasn’t getting credit for helping the economy.

“You wouldn’t know it from listening to folks but we cut taxes” for the middle-class, he said.

Reid is facing tea party-backed Sharron Angle, who was welcoming Obama with a reference to the kerfuffle the president caused in February when he asserted that people saving for college shouldn’t “blow a bunch of cash on Vegas.”

Angle also told a Las Vegas radio station this week that BP’s $20 billion victims’ compensation program is a “slush fund.” At a White House meeting last month, Obama secured a $20 billion commitment from BP to compensate people whose livelihoods are being affected by the spill and to clean up the Gulf. Angle said Obama strong-armed BP executives into setting up the fund.

Obama is to appear at a reception and dinner for Reid that are expected to reap about $800,000.

In Missouri, Obama will make his first fundraising appearance for Carnahan, who was out of the state in March when the president attended a joint fundraiser for Sen. Claire McCaskill and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. That caused speculation about whether Carnahan was purposely keeping Obama at arm’s length in a state he narrowly lost in 2008.

But her campaign said she welcomes his help. Obama will be appearing at a low-dollar reception for grass-roots supporters, and at a lunch and reception that Carnahan’s campaign said will raise more than $500,000.

Her likely Republican opponent is GOP Rep. Roy Blunt.

Associated Press writer David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Mo., contributed to this report.