President Barack Obama's two-day visit to Florida beginning Monday marks his first personal outreach to Democrats there heading into 2010 and indicates how determined his White House is to compete for the state in 2012.This trip, more than any the president has taken since January, looks like a campaign swing. The itinerary and the events are crafted to accentuate positives -- health care and the economy are not on the agenda -- and to squeeze the most into his time there.
"He's doing very much what George W. Bush did when he got elected, visiting Florida and Pennsylvania, states he wanted to flip or keep in his column," said David Johnson, a Republican political consultant. "They're shoring up for 2012."
Obama will hit three of the swing state's largest media markets. He begins in Jacksonville, stays overnight in Miami and flies to a rural area in a moderate Republican congressional district near Tampa Tuesday morning before returning to Washington. Along the way the president will energize new Democrats and the traditional faithful and engage the state's independent and moderate Republican voters who were pivotal to his election.
That the president is staying overnight in itself is significant. Obama has only bunked overnight in the same state where he'll hold an event the following day twice since taking office: in Arizona and California. Unlike Florida, both states geographically make for a tricky day trip. By stretching out his Florida visit over two days, Obama sends a strong signal about the state's significance, and gets more media coverage.
Perhaps the strongest sign that Obama is in campaign mode is that his scheduled events sidestep controversial issues.
While he's in a state with an abundance of seniors, who are nervous about the impact Obama's health care reform plan will have on Medicare, the president will not host an event focusing on his current top legislative priority. And despite Florida's double-digit unemployment rate, Obama's events will not focus specifically on the economy (although he'll likely mention jobs during an energy event).
Instead the president will raise money for the DCCC and DSCC, address members of the military and headline an energy event highlighting climate change legislation that Congress is struggling to pass this year at the opening of the largest solar power facility in the country.
"It's obviously very important for us," Kirk Wagar, Obama's top Florida fundraiser during the 2008 campaign, said of the president's visit. "It absolutely shows that we take nothing for granted."