AMERICA: As Obama bounds off the bus to the podium, you have to wonder how meaningful the candidates' encounters are in the US heartland
ON THE first morning of US president Barack Obama’s journey across the rust belt corridor, I opened the curtain in my roadside motel to see a bus looming on the pavement outside.
It said “Romney Victory”, and for a confused moment I was transported back 2½ weeks to the Republican candidate’s bus tour through some of the same territory. But Mitt Romney was on holiday in New Hampshire.
This bus carried allies dispatched by the Republican candidate to buzz around Barack Obama like flies.
Stakes are high in Ohio and Pennsylvania: 38 of 270 electoral votes required to win the White House in November. I spent the last two days on the press bus that arrives before each of the president’s speaking engagements and leaves after he has departed.
Since Timothy Crouse wrote The Boys on the Bus, about the 1972 Nixon-McGovern campaign, technology and the 24-hour news cycle have transformed the press bus into a super-concentrated rolling newsroom, silent but for tapping on computer keyboards.
An Obama aide asked me which bus tour was better. I preferred the food and music on the Obama trip; the power outlets and wifi connections were more reliable with Romney – a fairly accurate summation of the differences between Democrats and Republicans. Obama rallies feature U2’s City of Blinding Light and Bruce Springsteen’s We Take Care of Our Own. The Romney campaign plays country music at ear-piercing decibels.
Ground Force One, the armoured black behemoth adorned with the presidential seal, glides onto each site like something out of a science fiction novel. Obama bounds off the bus and sprints up to the podium. Attendance at both Romney and Obama rallies is by invitation only, so it’s rare to meet an undecided voter. You have to be a true believer to endure the long wait and security sweeps.
The bus tour sometimes feels like a meaningless, outdated ritual. What could be more staged than the president stopping to buy sweet corn and peaches at a roadside stand, or ordering a cold beer at Ziggy’s bar?
How meaningful are the candidates’ encounters in the American heartland when police and secret service agents nearly outnumber the locals? Obama has a knack for familiar banter: “I hope you had a good 4th of July! I had a little barbecue in my backyard. It was Malia’s birthday; I used to tell her the fireworks were for her, but she doesn’t believe me anymore. Michelle says ‘hi’.
“The girls say ‘hi’. Bo says ‘hi’.”
Sometimes, there’s a genuine charge of emotion. At an “ice cream social” in Sandusky, Stephanie Miller waited until Obama started down the rope line to thank him for signing “Obamacare”, which will extend Medicaid to millions of people.
“The law I passed is here to stay,” Obama said earlier in the day. “It is going to make the vast majority of Americans more secure.”
Miller choked up recounting how her sister Kelly, who died of cancer four years ago this week, was denied Medicaid because her income was too high. Obama listened intently, threw his arms around the middle-aged Ohio woman and embraced her tightly while she wept.
Embers of the 2008 campaign still glow. “I supported this guy four years ago, and I support him now,” Tom Roberts (66), a telecommunications technician, told me. “He was encouraging people to reach out and be the best they could become.”
Roberts clutched a copy of Dreams From My Father, and described the pride he feels when Obama travels abroad.
“In Europe, he’s received as more than mortal. And the opposition believe he’s bringing us down? We never had a president who commands such respect.”
On the Romney bus tour, I heard Obama called a communist, a Muslim and a liar. There’s little love lost for Romney on the Obama bus tour, but the criticism is more rooted in reality.
“Romney’s a charter member of the 1 per cent club,” an Ohio politician told me. “‘Outsourcing’ is a dirty word here; his history as an outsourcer at Bain could be fatal.”
Obama’s aides attribute the president’s current high poll numbers to the barrage of television advertising about Romney’s record at Bain Capital.
Obama tells every audience Romney wants to make $5 trillion in tax cuts, mainly for the very wealthy, that he’ll finance them by slashing education and Medicare.
“I’m not going to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and disabled,” Obama promised.
Obama stresses government can’t solve every problem, that people must help themselves, “but there are some things we do better together”.
He has turned his family history into a political parable about the positive power of government. “Gramps” went to college on the GI Bill after the second World War. He and “Tut” bought a house with the help of the Federal Housing Administration.
Obama’s mother struggled to raise two children alone, but was able to attend university thanks to government grants. So were Obama’s wife and brother-in-law, whose father was a blue-collar worker.
The American dream, the “basic bargain” that “hard work pays off, that responsibility is rewarded” started to fade decades ago, Obama says. He defines the constituency he champions broadly: “When I talk about middle class, I’m also talking about poor folks who are doing the right thing and trying to get into the middle class.
“And middle class is also an attitude. It’s not just about income; it’s about knowing what’s important and not measuring your success just based on your bank account.
“But it’s about your values, and being responsible – and looking after each other, and giving back.”
