(
)
WASHINGTON — Hoping to rekindle some of the magic of his 2008 campaign, President Obama launched a three-day bus tour through the heartland — which Republican rival Mitt Romney immediately panned as the “Magical Misery Tour.”
Thirteen months before he is on the ballot, Obama flew out of Washington on Air Force One, then hopped aboard a black, unmarked government motor coach in the Twin Cities for a tour through rural towns in Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois, in what critics charge are actually campaign events on the taxpayers’ dime.
Speaking in Cannon Falls, Minn., Obama took a rare shot at the entire GOP field of presidential candidates, although White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insisted the tour was not a campaign trip.
PHOTOS: OBAMA’S $2.1 MILLION BUSES
Obama noted that all candidates participating in Thursday’s debate raised their hands when asked whether they would reject a budget deal that had $10 in budget cuts for every $1 in tax hikes.
“None of them would take it. Think about that. I mean, that’s just not common sense,” Obama said.
He blasted Romney, his leading GOP rival, for having pushed through a health-care plan in Massachusetts with an “individual mandate” like the one in his own federal health-care law that some conservatives say is unconstitutional.
“You’ve got a governor who’s running for president right now who instituted the exact same thing in Massachusetts,” Obama said. “It’s like they got amnesia. It’s like, ‘Oh, this is terrible. This is going to take away freedom for Americans all over the world, all over the country.’ So that’s a little puzzling.”
Obama actually embraced the “ObamaCare” moniker that some consider a pejorative term. “Let me tell you, I have no problem with folks saying ‘Obama cares.’ I do care,” he said.
Romney, borrowing from the Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” album, called Obama’s trip the “Magical Misery Tour.”
“During his Magical Misery bus tour this week . . . he is more interested in campaigning in swing states than working to solve the economic crisis that is crushing the middle class,” said Romney.
Obama got mostly softballs from a friendly crowd in Cannon Falls. “I just want to say thank you so much for a great job you are doing. I support you 100 percent,” said a questioner who identified himself as Will Morrison of Rochester, Minn.