PEOSTA, IOWA — President Barack Obama took the pulse of the rural economy in a small chunk of the heartland Tuesday, talking with business leaders here, while Iowans gauged his job performance.
“Obviously we’re going through tough times right now — I don’t have to tell you that,” Obama told the 200-person crowd invited to join a rural economic forum here, on the middle leg of his three-day bus tour of the Midwest. He visited Minnesota on Monday, and will continue to Illinois today.
“A lot of folks are looking for work,” he said. “Even if you have a job, or a small business, or a farm, you may be getting by with fewer customers, maybe doing fewer shifts, or less money in tips, and for a lot of families in rural parts of the country, these challenges aren’t new.”
The president heard from small business owners over breakfast in Guttenberg in the morning, then compared ideas with ranchers, farmers, public servants and entrepreneurs during a closed forum in the afternoon at Northeast Iowa Community College here.
During his journey through rural Iowa, Obama waved to small children clutching U.S. flags along the sidewalk and grandparents who pulled out lawn chairs to watch the motorcade.
Republican presidential candidates have crisscrossed Iowa for weeks, promoting their records and duking it out to become the nominee who will challenge Obama.
Yesterday, Obama unveiled his latest solutions to the national 9.1 percent unemployment rate. He came to the state bearing news of a $13.2 million loan program for small business owners in Iowa and a $510 million investment in biofuel technology.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former Iowa Democratic governor who joined Obama on the bus tour, characterized the biofuel initiative as a key step to ending dependence on foreign oil and exploring a burgeoning new sector.
“All of the sudden, there’s a tremendous amount of interest in the (biofuel) industry,” Vilsack told reporters. “We show that it works, we show that it’s effective, we show that it’s made in America, that we don’t have to import oil from foreign countries that don’t like us. We can create job opportunities here.”
He said the construction, trucking and agricultural industries would benefit, and new permanent jobs would be created in plants dedicated to turning straw, trees, algae and other types of biomass into synthetic fuel.
The crowd cheered Obama when he vowed that America would come back from the recession “stronger than before.”
The president got a different reception when his black armored bus pulled up to the 500-acre campus, and was confronted by Tea Party protesters waving flags and carrying signs reading “One Term.”
Roger Mall, 59, of Davenport, took a day off from his work as a home investor to join the anti-Obama rally, after hearing about it from local Tea Party organizers. He said he had a message to send to the president.
“People are really distressed over the economy, and the policies are just not working. You can’t increase costs on business and investors and hope to engender a vibrant economy. His proposals are all drags on the economy — regulation, taxes,” Mall said.
Another Tea Party protester, Don Holmes, 70, of Davenport, said he thought the president was using his tour to play a blame game for the bad economy.
“You know Harry Truman used to have a sign on his desk that said, ‘The buck stops here.’ This president passes it so many times, that he doesn’t even know what the buck is,” Holmes said. “So if you’re looking to assign responsibility, don’t look to the president because he blames everybody.”
Though his visit Tuesday focused on policy, the president’s campaign is attempting to build momentum across the Iowa.
Describing the state of Obama’s campaign organization to reporters Saturday in Ames, Democratic Party of Iowa Chairwoman Sue Dvorsky said, “The real work — it’s not very glamorous.”
“There’s not much story; it’s not very sexy. It’s been going on for months. It continues to go on every day (and) every weekend,” she said.
The conventional wisdom, she said, holds that Iowa will be one of the last battleground states in the 2012 presidential election. Dvorsky then vowed her personal commitment to delivering all of Iowa’s six electoral votes to Obama.
During the same meeting, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz acknowledged that re-election would not be a “cake walk” for Obama.
“We’re going to run the most robust, aggressive presidential campaign in American history on our side,” said U.S. Rep. Wasserman Schultz, D-FL. “There’s no question that it’s going to be a competitive-spirited campaign.”
More than 1,500 organizers have been deployed nationwide, she said, selected from a pool of 15,000 applicants. They are trying to generating momentum for Obama’s re-election campaign.
Obama said the gathering here was not political. While sitting down to share ideas, he said he had no sense of whether participants were Democrats or Republican.
“It’s a recognition that the prime driver of economic growth and jobs is going to be our people, and the private sector and our businesses … but you know what, government can help. Government can make a difference,” the president said.
Hannah Hess covers politics for IowaPolitics.com, which is owned by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.
