As Mitt Romney kicks off a campaign bus tour into what ABC News calls “hostile territory,” Barack Obama is waging a defensive campaign, visiting states he won in 2008. It is clear, from campaign schedules alone, that Obama does not believe he can add states to his column in the 2012 election–and that he is worried about holding the line against an increasingly aggressive, and effective, Romney ground operation.
Romney’s tour reveals a “mostly offense” strategy:
In mid-June, Romney’s five-day bus tour swung through New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan, all Obama states in 2008. In the 15 counties Romney visited, including major Obama strongholds in Madison, Wis., and Davenport, Iowa, Obama carried the total vote by 5 percentage points. Counting all votes cast, Obama defeated McCain 50 percent to 45 percent in Romney’s bus-tour counties.
“We’re certainly campaigning on their turf,” Romney strategist Russ Schriefer told reporters the day the tour began.
As Breitbart News has reported, Obama is having particular difficulty holding onto white, working-class voters that form the traditional Democratic base in key, electoral-vote-rich states in the industrial Midwest.