This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 4, 2011 - President Barack Obama will deliver on Tuesday yet another appeal to Congress to pass his American Jobs Act, which focuses on tax breaks and physical improvements of schools, roads, bridges, railroads and airports.
But his public address will be in Dallas, not St. Louis.
Right after that address (in the home state of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry), the president will fly to St. Louis for an evening filled with two campaign fundraising events that don't appear to be open for press coverage.
Obama's lower-profile visit, which is slated to last only a few hours, is yet another sign of Missouri's lesser status on the Democratic 2012 re-election map.
Tuesday's stop is Obama's first visit to the St. Louis region since March 2010. He was last in the state in May to view tornado-ravaged Joplin, Mo.
Missouri is getting less presidential attention for an obvious reason. Activists on both sides have said for months that Missouri is seen as less friendly political terrain for the president in 2012, particularly compared to other crucial states.
The numbers tell the story. Obama narrowly lost Missouri in 2008; the state was the only swing state that year that didn't swing Obama's way.
With his 2012 re-election prospects currently facing challenges in a number of states that Obama did carry in 2008, political experts have been saying that Missouri will likely get less attention -- and TV ads -- as the president and his campaign focus on other states, such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, seen as more crucial and more winnable.
Tuesday's events in St. Louis reinforce that perception, since they're primarily aimed at raising campaign money that at the moment may primarily be spent somewhere else.
Still, Missouri Republicans are helping to organize a protest rally and robo-calls to attack the president's policies and discredit his re-election effort.
The voice of Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, a Republican, is featured in a robo-call that circulated late Monday, in which he asks listeners to show up for a late afternoon rally in Forest Park to protest what he called the president's "job-killing agenda."
U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said Monday that Obama's recent trips around the country -- often making appearances related to his jobs plan in the same cities where he also holds fundraising events -- tend to be related more to campaigning than to governing.
"I don't know if [Tuesday's] visit is just about fundraising or not. But all these stops appear to be focused on the campaign, rather than what needs to be done right now," Blunt told reporters. "I think the president would be better off if he was in Washington, working with legislative leaders to get something done" on issues such as jobs and federal regulations.
Meanwhile, the state's two top Democrats -- Gov. Jay Nixon and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill -- are laying low. Neither are expected to join the president during his stop.
As of Friday, a spokesman for Nixon indicated they still knew little about the president's schedule, an indication that the governor may not be in St. Louis on Tuesday.
McCaskill's staff confirmed Monday that she won't be in town. A spokesman had said earlier that she would join the president if his visit didn't coincide with key Senate votes and her own fundraiser set for Tuesday evening in Washington, D.C. Based on the timing of the president's events here, it was not expected that the senator would attend.
For McCaskill, Nixon and Missouri's other top Democrats, there's a downside to a lower presidential presence in 2012 -- less national Democratic campaign money, which often is used to bankroll the field operations aimed at encouraging Democrats to vote and helping people get to the polls.
A lower-profile presence by Obama also will likely lead to less Republican attention as well, especially since the Missouri Republican Party voted last week to award its delegates via the caucus system, not from the results of the Feb. 7 statewide presidential primary.
President's Schedule in St. Louis
The president will first attend a 5 p.m. reception at the Renaissance Grand Hotel downtown. Tickets ranged from $1,000-$2,500. Gen44, the young-voter arm of the Democratic National Committee, was offering a limited number of tickets for $250.
Obama then is to attend a big-ticket event near Forest Park, at the home of Tom Carnahan, a lawyer, businessman and the brother of U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, and Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. The cohosts include Bob Clark, chief executive of the construction firm Clayco, and veteran Democratic activist and fundraiser Joyce Aboussie. Tickets begin at $25,000.
Republicans and conservative critics also have renewed the 2010 attacks against Tom Carnahan, who is part of the Wind Capital Group that owns and operates a wind farm in north-central Missouri.
Kinder's robo-call referred to a protest rally that is being organized by tea party activists and various independent conservative group. The rally is to be held along Lindell Boulevard near Tom Carnahan's home.
Wind Capital Group obtained $107 million in a 2009 federal stimulus grant as part of a national program to encourage development of alternative energy. Vice President Joe Biden visited the wind farm in 2009. Sen. Roy Blunt ran an attack TV ad last year that accused Russ and Robin Carnahan of playing a role in the awarding of the grant. The Carnahans and the wind farm denied it.
A spokesman for Wind Capital Group said Sunday that critics mischaracterize the grant and the operation. The stimulus grant helped pay for construction of the project, the spokesman said, with no money going to Tom Carnahan.
The wind farm has been in operation for about a year, the spokesman said, and sells its energy to Northwest Electric Power Cooperative, which uses the power from the farm to provide electricity to 50,000 homes in north central Missouri.
The protest rally is organized by United for Missouri, the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition, Americans for Prosperity-Missouri and blogger Jim Hoft (the Gateway Pundit).
"We owe it to the American people to demand fiscal responsibility from the Obama Administrationand the deep-pocketed donors who support it," said United forMissouri executive director Carl Bearden. "The fact that this high-dollar fundraiser is being held at Tom Carnahan's home is particularly insulting. While the unemployment rate continue to rise, Carnahan's Wind Capital Group received $107 million in stimulus funds."
Bearden said the plan calls for a "peaceful, tasteful protest that will share many Americans' concerns about unemployment, cronyism and the stimulus package's failure to improve our economy."
Participants have been asked to be "tasteful, irreverent, and funny."
The president also will be the subject of a protest outside the Renaissance by a Washington University environmental group, Green Action. The group says its members voted for Obama in 2008, and want him to veto a proposed 1,700-mile oil pipeline called the "Keystone XL," that would transport oil from Alberta in Canada to the Texas Gulf coast, and also to the Wood River refinery in Illinois. Critics have environmental concerns.
Beacon Washington correspondent Robert Koenig contributed information for this article.
