WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is headed to the Midwest after a summer of discontent over a debt showdown with Republicans and the downgrade in the nation’s credit rating.
Obama’s bus tour begins Monday. It’s his first as president and will take him to prairie communities in Minnesota and through Iowa and Illinois. There are stops in the farmland and rural towns that launched his first White House bid.
Obama won a clean sweep in 2008 of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan. But Obama’s standing in these states, like elsewhere, has grown precarious as the economy has slumped.