Washington: US President Barack Obama today pursued a coast-to-coast campaign blitz through key battlegrounds, looking to energise Democrats and stave off a likely drubbing in elections little more than two weeks off.
"This is a tough political environment," he told a cheering crowd during a tag-team campaign trip on Friday in Delaware, home patch of Vice President Joe Biden. "I need you all to keep on fighting."
And with just 16 days to go before the November 2 polls, top White House spokesman Robert Gibbs reversed his earlier prediction that the Democrats could lose their majority in the House of Representatives.
"I think that come election night, we will retain control of both the House and the Senate," Gibbs told NBC`s "Meet the Press." With the contest set to turn on deep voter anger at the sour US economy, high joblessness, and soaring home foreclosures, Obama has been warning that his Republican foes will just make things worse.
"The other side wants you to believe that this election is simply a referendum on the current state of the economy, but make no mistake," he said. "This election is a choice. And the stakes couldn`t be higher."
"The last thing we should do is return to a philosophy that nearly destroyed our economy," said Obama, who delivered much the same message yesterday at a rally for a political kindred spirit, Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.
Obama`s Republican foes, meanwhile, surfed a political spending tidal wave designed to sweep away weakened White House allies and capture at least the House of
Representatives. And they have hammered at the ballooning US national debt and what they described as runaway government spending, vowing to cut taxes and rein in Washington.
Analysts predicted that Republicans stood a solid chance of netting the 39 seats they needed to retake the House and would seize key governorships but fall just short of the
10 new seats needed to seize the Senate.
Today, Obama was to get a charge of enthusiasm from his wife Michelle Obama, appearing together on the campaign trail for the first time since the 2008 presidential race with two events in Ohio.
The First Lady made her 2010 stump debut last week, pleading in compassionate tones for patience with the sluggish pace of economic recovery nearly two years after her husband won the White House.
Bureau Report
