Obama takes break from battleground states to tout health

The White House’s choice of Maine to promote healthcare on Thursday is not
steeped in campaign politics.

President Barack Obama won’t be staking time in a swing
state when he goes to Portland, and he won’t be helping Democrats win crucial
Senate seats. Neither GOP Senate incumbent in the state is up for reelection in
2010.

{mosads}Before healthcare’s passage, Obama had traveled to swing
states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania to tout healthcare reform.

A White House official said not to expect any pressure from
Obama on Maine’s two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

Both voted against healthcare reform, though the White House
thought each was a gettable centrist vote at the beginning of the
debate.

Snowe did cast a vote in favor of healthcare legislation
approved by the Senate Finance Committee; that was the only yes vote for
healthcare from a Republican senator.

Obama will be joined in Maine, which he won overwhelmingly
in the 2008 presidential election, by Democratic Reps. Chellie Pingree and
Mike Michaud. Neither is seen as vulnerable in the fall.

There is a governor’s race in 2010 in Maine, but the
incumbent Democrat is term-limited and not running.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said this week that
the political roadmap was not considered for this week’s travel schedule.

“There’s a thousand years before the next elections,” Gibbs said. “You guys
will have plenty of time to go cover them. The president is not focused
on what happens the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
We’re focused on this Monday and this Tuesday.”

Obama will be focused on “the small-business aspects” of the
legislation in his remarks on Thursday, the White House said.

Gibbs said one of the reasons Maine
was selected is that Small Business Administration administrator Karen Mills is from Maine “and we’re going to
focus on — again, on the small-business aspects of the healthcare
reform.”

Snowe and Collins are likely to
stay in the president’s focus this year and beyond even if they are not
targeted in Thursday’s speech.

Both could be swing votes on a
variety of issues, and the White House will need Republican senators to join
Democrats in order to move things through the Senate.

Their importance will only increase
next year if Republicans gain seats in the Senate.

Spokesmen for both senators said it
was an honor to have the president visit their state, but Collins’s spokesman
also took a shot at Obama on the economy.

“While
healthcare is certainly an important topic, Sen. Collins is hopeful that
the president will also use this opportunity to talk more about his plans to
help create much-needed jobs and address the struggling economy,” the spokesman
said in an e-mail.

On Friday, the president shifts to the
economy during a trip to Charlotte, N.C., that coincides with the release of
March unemployment numbers.

“North Carolina is one of the
states in the country that has seen fairly big unemployment in terms of their
rate is north of 10 percent,” Gibbs said. “And we will highlight a company that
is seeing, as a result of some of the investments that they’ve made in creating
the jobs of the future, increases that they’ve made in their hiring rolls, on
Friday.”

One forecast released Thursday said
private sector jobs would decline in March, but the numbers to be released on
Friday are expected to show net growth in large part because of hiring by the
Census Bureau.

After his stop in Maine, Obama will travel to Boston for a Democratic National Committee fundraiser. He’ll
return to the White House on Thursday night before leaving again for the Tar Heel
State on Friday.