Obama comes out swinging for big reforms

President Barack Obama on Thursday rekindled the "Yes We Can" mood of his 2008 campaign, vowing not to shirk from the "tough stuff" after his reform plans ground to a near halt in Congress.

Seeking a political rebound, Obama held a folksy town hall meeting in Florida, where his approval numbers have tumbled as the key swing state which helped send him to the White House battles the mortgage crisis and high unemployment.

A day after his defiant State of the Union address, Obama insisted on a rare road trip with Vice President Joe Biden that he would not shelve hopes for reform even though testy Washington politics slowed his drive for change.

"We ran to get the tough stuff done. I make no apology for trying to fix stuff that is hard," Obama roared, in an event highlighting an eight billion dollar (RM27.3 billion) investment in job creating high-speed rail projects.

"Joe and I are pretty smart politicians - we have been at this a while. The easiest way to keep your poll numbers high is to say nothing and to do nothing that offends anybody," Obama said.

"The minute you actually start doing something, somebody is going to disagree with you," Obama said, who sprinkled his speech with quips and took a sarcastic swipe at the press.

He signed off, before a question and answer session, with his trademark campaign slogan, which has been rarely heard during a grim year of governing and battling a string of economic and financial crises.

"Yes we can," Obama said, picking up a chant from an audience. "We don't quit, we don't back down, we are Americans."

'Resetting' the administration

The White House denies that Obama used his State of the Union speech to "reset" his administration, after his most humiliating political blow yet, the Democratic loss last week of the Senate seat of the late Edward Kennedy.

But on this trip, and in Ohio last week, and even in the House of Representatives on Wednesday night, Obama seemed a little liberated, striking more populist notes and slamming the moral bankruptcy of Washington.

Despite hammering the jobs message, Obama could not resist turning back to his health care reform plan, and vowed to unpick the deadlock in Congress on an issue he termed a bone he could not stop "gnawing."

Obama appears determined not to scale back his reform hopes because of a suddenly inhospitable political environment. But it remains unclear just how much of his ambitious agenda will make it though Congress unscathed.

Florida, like swing states Ohio, where Obama went last week, and New Hampshire, on his itinerary next week, has seen independent voters turn against the president after national unemployment hit 10 percent.

After spending a year trying unsuccessfully to pass health care reform, Obama said Wednesday his top priority in 2010 was creating jobs, as Democrats head into what look a tough set of mid-term congressional polls in November.

"I campaigned on the promise of change - change we can believe in, the slogan went," Obama said Wednesday, recalling the days before his barnstorming campaign promises hit a brick wall of Republican opposition in government.

"Right now, I know there are many Americans who aren't sure if they still believe we can change - or at least that I can deliver it," he said, and bluntly stated "change has not come fast enough."

Polls slide

A Quinnipiac University poll last month found 49 percent of voters in Florida, hard hit by the mortgage foreclosure crisis, disapproved of Obama's performance and only 45 percent approved.

Obama and Biden formally rolled out an eight billion dollar grant for high speed rail under the president's 787 billion dollar (RM2,689 billion) economic stimulus plan, which had been previously announced.

"How can we, the leading nation in the world, be in the position where China, Spain, France, and name all the other countries who have rail systems that are far superior to ours?" Biden, a long-time rail commuter asked.

"It's about time we moved ... . But most important, we're creating jobs, good jobs, construction jobs, manufacturing jobs."

The administration said the investment would create or save tens of thousands of jobs over time in areas like track-laying, manufacturing, planning and engineering, and rail maintenance and operations.

- AFP