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Obama to Herald Progress in Indiana in Effort to Frame Election Debate Obama Wades Into Election Debate With Indiana Speech
(about 13 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama is about to get political. ELKHART, Ind. — President Obama on Wednesday forcefully inserted himself into the 2016 presidential campaign, assailing Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party for peddling economic policies that he said would benefit the rich and connected at the expense of a still-struggling middle class.
On Wednesday, he will use a visit to Elkhart, Ind., to try to frame the general election debate that is about to explode into view. And he will give a preview of his role in waging a campaign-year battle to keep a Republican from succeeding him. Mr. Obama framed this year’s presidential contest as a choice between a Democratic Party committed to working families and a Republican Party he said was beholden to China, “big oil,” “big banks” and the wealthiest Americans. White House aides cast the speech as the president’s first major attempt to influence the race to succeed him.
“He understands that his successor will have some important decisions to make about whether or not we are going to build on this progress,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday. “And there is a pretty clear choice to be made if you take a look at the policies that are being advocated by the two parties.” “If what you care about in this election is your pocketbook; if what you’re concerned about is who will look out for the interests of working people and grow the middle class,” Mr. Obama said in a fiery, campaignlike speech, “if what you’re concerned about is the economy, then the debate is not even close.”
The visit to Elkhart is an economic victory lap of sorts for the White House. In February 2009, after being in office only 20 days, Mr. Obama visited the city, which he described as the center of the economic crisis that was gripping the nation. “Elkhart is a place that has lost jobs faster than anywhere else in America,” he said at the time. Aides said the president, who is expected to ultimately endorse Hillary Clinton, was eager to jump into the carnival-like political debate between Mr. Trump, the presumptive G.O.P. nominee, and the Democrats’ choice.
On Wednesday, Mr. Obama will return to a much-recovered Elkhart community. Unemployment, which peaked at nearly 20 percent in the city of about 50,000, has dropped to about 4 percent. Business is booming and house prices have risen again. Railing against one of Mr. Trump’s comments — that he would roll back rules imposed on Wall Street — Mr. Obama’s voice grew louder as he declared, “That is crazy!” Sleeves rolled up and his finger wagging, the president asked the supportive crowd, “Have we really forgotten what just happened eight years ago?”
Mr. Obama’s critics in Elkhart say the credit for the recovery goes to the grit and determination of the people who live there, not to faraway politicians in Washington. Kyle Hannon, the president of the Greater Elkhart Chamber of Commerce, said he was “honored” that Mr. Obama was back in town, but he said he found it difficult to attribute the recovery to the president’s policies. The president said that when he heard that working families were voting for the Republican economic agenda, “I want to have an intervention!”
“I can’t connect the dots,” Mr. Hannon said, adding, “There will a skeptical audience.” Mr. Obama knows his legacy is at stake — eight years of effort in the Oval Office will be at risk if Mr. Trump succeeds him — but his eagerness to get back into campaign mode is partly personal. In 2011, the year before Mr. Obama ran for re-election, Mr. Trump became the most vocal advocate of the “birther movement” conspiracy theories that falsely held that the president was born in Kenya. Mr. Trump has also hurled crude epithets at many of Mr. Obama’s allies and constituent groups.
Nonetheless, Mr. Obama will use the backdrop of an Elkhart economic turnaround to begin warming up a political argument that will probably last months. “Are we going to build on this momentum,” Mr. Earnest asked, previewing that argument. “Or are we going to tear it down?” Although Mr. Obama did not mention Mr. Trump by name during his speech, there was no mistaking the meaning of his words or that the remarks will serve as the framework for a stump speech the president intends to take on the road in the months ahead.
“If we turn against each other based on divisions of race or religion, if we fall for a bunch of okey-doke just because it sounds funny or its tweets are provocative,” the president said, “then we won’t build on the progress we’ve started.”
Mr. Obama used Elkhart, which is the first American city he visited as president, as a backdrop for his economic message. The city’s manufacturing-based economy cratered faster than those of most communities during the 2008 recession, when unemployment reached almost 20 percent. In the years since, the recovery has been just as rapid: Unemployment is now at about 4 percent, and the city’s decades-old recreational vehicle industry is once again growing.
Speaking at a high school on the outskirts of the city, Mr. Obama claimed credit for the reversal of fortunes here, but also suggested that the improvements were fragile and reversible if the country turned away from economic policies championed by his administration and Democrats.
Mr. Obama sharply criticized what he called the “myth of crazy, liberal government spending” and urged the crowd to support Democratic politicians who favor higher wages, equal pay, support for unions, better education and fair trade.
Mr. Obama’s critics in Elkhart say the credit for the recovery goes to the grit and determination of the people who live there, not politicians in Washington. Kyle Hannon, the president of the Greater Elkhart Chamber of Commerce, said he was “honored” to have Mr. Obama back in his town, but said he found it difficult to connect the president’s policies to the recovery.
“That’s not the conversation that’s going on in the coffee shops and on the street corners here,” said Mr. Hannon, who identified himself as a Republican but said he planned to vote for the Libertarian candidate because Mr. Trump “frightens” him.
The crowd of about 2,100 people in the Concord High School gymnasium greeted Mr. Obama with the kind of enthusiasm the president often saw during rallies he held at the height of his own campaigns. Several times, the crowd gave him standing ovations.
Top aides say the president is waiting to make a endorsement until the Democratic nominating contest is finished. But with Mr. Trump already claiming the Republican nomination, and Mrs. Clinton far ahead in delegates as the Democratic race nears an end, the president decided to weigh in aggressively.
Before Wednesday, Mr. Obama largely contained his political attacks to responses to questions at news conferences.
In April, he questioned the Republican front-runner’s fitness for office, saying that Mr. Trump’s comments about the use of nuclear weapons shows he “doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean Peninsula or the world generally.”
Reporters prodded Mr. Obama at another news conference in May, when the president criticized the “spectacle and the circus” in reporting about Mr. Trump’s campaign. A few weeks later in Asia, Mr. Obama said Mr. Trump knew little about the world.
“A lot of the proposals that he’s made display either ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude or an interest in getting tweets and headlines instead of actually thinking through what it is that is required to keep America safe and secure,” Mr. Obama said.
During the speech in Elkhart, Mr. Obama was less direct in his criticism of Mr. Trump. Instead, he sought to build a broader case against the party that Mr. Trump is set to lead in the general election.
He said the “primary story that Republicans have been telling about the economy is not supported by the facts; it’s just not.” But he said that narrative was being distributed across the country by conservative news media, talk radio and Republican politicians.
“If you’re hearing that story all of the time, you start believing it,” Mr. Obama said. His mission, he told the crowd, was to try to counter that story as the general election campaign gets underway: “I’m here to say, Elkhart, we’ve got to challenge the assumptions behind this economic story.”