President Obama launched his reelection campaign in an unusually low-key fashion Monday — with the simple posting of a video featuring level-headed endorsements from a cross-section of Americans, a far-cry from the adulation and soaring rhetoric that catapulted the junior senator from Illinois into the Oval Office three years ago.
Although understated, the video, titled “It Begins With Us,” signals Obama’s formal shift into campaign mode and marks the official beginning of a fundraising blitz Obama and his team hopes will dwarf his staggering record in 2008.
Obama aims to break the $1 billion ceiling and is getting a running start by kicking off his campaign 45 days earlier in the cycle than did then-President George W. Bush. The drive for dollars will pick up later this month with several fundraisers.
If the campaign can rake in a war chest early and spend it wisely, Obama could have an enormous cash advantage in the general over any Republican challenger. The early GOP field is so crowded — at least 15 Republicans have expressed some degree of interest in opposing Obama — that GOP primary opponents will be both forced to compete for dollars and spend it furiously trying to separate themselves from the pack.
The announcement was expected as reports over the weekend signaled. But the way it occurred, in an e-mail with an accompanying video, set a much different tone than the awe-inspiring Democratic upstart candidate of three years ago who won a sweeping victory over Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on a message of change and motivated a new generation to go to the polls and vote for him in record numbers.
The two-minute, 10-second video featured supporters from across the country — an older white man from North Carolina, a Hispanic mother, a black woman and a young white man who was too young to vote for Obama in 2008 but is still inspired by his presidency. Their statements were supportive but not gushing, and seemed to put the onus on all Americans to help change the direction of the country through getting involved in the political process. Obama doesn’t make an appearance throughout the video.
In the accompanying e-mail, Obama pledged to stay focused on the job while laying the groundwork for the campaign next year.
“We’ve always known that lasting change wouldn’t come quickly or easily. … But as my administration and folks across the country fight to protect the progress we’ve made — and make more — we also need to begin mobilizing for 2012, long before the time comes for me to begin campaigning in earnest,” he wrote.
Despite Obama’s flagging poll numbers, his job approval is higher than those of Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush when they decided to run again, but he faces an incredibly complex and challenging re-election landscape.
Though unemployment rates have been dropping, overall numbers remain high and the economic recovery has been agonizingly slow and many Americans have faced some of the most difficult financial challenges of their lives over the last three years.
During Obama’s time in the White House, voters have taken their anger out on Democrats in Congress, electing a Republican majority in the House dead set on cutting spending and opposing Obama’s agenda at every turn. Republicans have tried to block funding for his landmark legislative achievement, healthcare reform, or have it overturned in the courts.
Obama has been unable to fulfill many of his campaign promises, most notably closing the detainee prison at Guantanamo Bay and ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although he has decreased the number of troops in Iraq, thousands of Americans are still there and the deadline for the beginning of a troop withdrawal in Afghanistan is in July, although the country is still in turmoil and just how many troops will be leaving has yet to be determined.
Obama is also under attack for his decision to use military force to create a no-fly zone in Libya. The U.S. responses to uprisings throughout the Middle East provide incredible opportunity for establishing fledgling democracies but are also fraught with peril. Criticism in Congress over Obama’s foreign policy decisions have divided the parties — with some complaining that he moved too slowly and relied too much on international support and others who argue against any type of U.S. intervention in the region.
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