President Barack Obama waves to the crowd as he walks through a snowstorm after getting of Air Force One in Manchester, N.H. ,Thursday, March 1, 2012, on his way to speak at the Nashua (N.H.) Community College. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
President Barack Obama waves to the crowd as he walks through a snowstorm after getting of Air Force One in Manchester, N.H. ,Thursday, March 1, 2012, on his way to speak at the Nashua (N.H.) Community College. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
Air Force One, with President Barack Obama aboard, lands during a snowstorm in Manchester, N.H. ,Thursday, March 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
Snow falls as people stand in line as they to see President Barack Obama , Thursday, March 1, 2012, in Nashua, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) ? President Barack Obama is turning his political sights on snowy New Hampshire, the small but strategically important political battleground where his campaign hopes to shore up voter support for November's general election.
Republicans vying for his job, meanwhile, kept their sights on next week's Super Tuesday primaries as they campaigned from North Dakota to Georgia, blaming Obama for high gas prices.
Obama was expected to promote his efforts to boost domestic energy production in a speech Thursday in Nashua, N.H. The trip marked the president's second visit to the state in about three months. Vice President Joe Biden has been a frequent visitor to New Hampshire, and first lady Michelle Obama held a conference call with campaign volunteers there Wednesday.
After the speech, Obama was headed to New York City for four campaign fundraisers.
Obama planned to call again for Congress to end some $4 billion in annual subsidies for oil and gas companies, aides reported. Obama has said these breaks are unwarranted at a time of burgeoning profits and rising domestic production.
A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service last year concluded that Obama's oil and gas proposals "may have the effect of decreasing exploration, development, and production, while increasing prices and increasing the nation's foreign oil dependence." It also said such an impact would likely be on "a small scale."
Anticipating Obama's speech, GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney argued in Fargo, N.D., that the president has tried to slow oil, gas and coal production through his Environmental Protection Agency and changes in policies governing federal lands.
"He's going to talk about how he's responsible for the increasing production of oil in this country, oil and gas in this country," Romney said. "Is he responsible for the increase? No, I didn't think so."
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, campaigning in Woodstock Ga., called on Obama to fire Energy Secretary Steven Chu, approve a Canada-Texas pipeline and open more of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska to oil drilling.
"He ran in 2008 on the slogan, 'Yes we can.' He's running this year on the slogan 'Why we couldn't,'" Gingrich said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Obama over the idea of ending oil and gas subsidies and questioned how it would help.
"If someone in the administration can show me that raising taxes on American energy production will lower gas prices and create jobs, then I will gladly discuss it. But since nobody can, and the president doesn't, this is merely an attempt to deflect from his failed policies," McConnell said.
White House spokesman Jay Carney shot back that oil companies are making big profits and "it doesn't make sense for the taxpayer to cushion their already very robust bottom line."
Though Obama easily carried New Hampshire in 2008, he and his surrogates have paid particular political attention to the state in recent months. It offers only four electoral votes in the November election, but Democrats have been eying New Hampshire warily following its sharp shift to the right in the 2010 midterm elections.
Further fueling concerns for Democrats are Romney's personal ties to the state. He was governor of neighboring Massachusetts, owns a vacation home in New Hampshire and scored an overwhelming victory in the state's Republican presidential primary in January.
Republicans blasted Obama for spending increasing time on fundraising travel, with official government stops attached to the trips. Said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus: "Come this November, none of these taxpayer-funded campaign stops by President Obama or Vice President Biden can help them carry the Granite State."
However, a poll conducted in New Hampshire in early February showed Obama beating Romney by 10 percentage points in a hypothetical matchup. Other GOP presidential candidates also trailed Obama in the WMUR Granite State poll. It gave Obama an 8-point advantage over Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who is a favorite in libertarian-leaning New Hampshire, and an advantage of more than 20 points over both Gingrich and Santorum.
Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire, said that with the state's economy on solid footing compared with national trends and the president boosting his presence in the state, some New Hampshire Democrats are starting to feel more confident about their prospects in November.
"There probably was concern among Democrats that maybe New Hampshire is not part of the president's re-election plan," he said. "Now things have kind of reverted back to form in a hurry."
___
Associated Press writers Ken Thomas in Woodstock, Ga., and Kasie Hunt in Fargo, N.D., contributed to this report.
Associated Pressapple iphone apple iphone cnet tampa bay rays netanyahu apple keynote apple keynote
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.