Obama looking for heartland's pulse in Iowa visit

President Barack Obama's fact-finding trip to Iowa today is meant to take the pulse of America's heartland.

His third trip to Iowa since being elected president will take him southeast to Fort Madison, Mount Pleasant and Ottumwa - three communities with above-average unemployment by Iowa standards - to discuss with small-business owners, workers, farmers and others ways to bolster the recovery and grow jobs.

• TODAY'S AGENDA: Obama to visit Fort Madison, Mount Pleasant, Ottumwa, Des Moines

“I think it's a sign that he takes the problems of each region very seriously,” said Christina Romer, chairwoman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, who noted that previous stops on the president's Main Street Tour landed him in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Georgia. Romer and Jen Psaki, White House deputy director of communications, previewed the two-day swing through Iowa, Missouri and Illinois with reporters Monday.

However, Iowa Republicans saw the president's quick-hit itinerary of three Iowa stops today and a previous trip to Iowa City last month as a campaign-style mission to traditionally “Democratically friendly areas” where voters, especially independents, are feeling buyer's remorse after having embraced a change message that morphed into government expansion.

“We hope the president has answers other than more spending when it comes to job creation, but, if recent past is any guide, he sees job creation through the prism of more federal spending and most folks know that's not how jobs get created,” said Matt Strawn, chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa who led a rain-dampened GOP Stand Up 4 Freedom rally in Ottumwa last night.

In advance of the president's trip, administration officials issued a 42-page council report highlighting the successes and challenges facing rural America.

A council survey found the rural economy is more diverse but also boasts the world's most productive agricultural sector, however, it has a labor force that is aging and lags in educational attainment behind urban population centers. Also, health care improvements and access have not kept pace with urban advances and work investment is needed to continue telecommunication advancements.

Romer said investments via the federal economic recovery act have spurred biofuels and renewable energy expansion and boosted support for small-business lending through the Small Business Administration – with the dollar value of SBA loans to rural areas increasing 2.5 times higher in December 2009 compared to the previous January. While it's gotten little attention, she noted that demand for U.S. products has quietly made strides under an export initiative.

“The entire package of regulatory reform is designed for Main Street,” Romer said. “The whole idea is to get a system that is safer and will not put us through the kind of financial crisis that we're recovering from even now. The reason we're talking about regulatory reform today is because we never want to go through this kind of a financial crisis again. It's a message that should resonate on Main Street as much as everyplace else.”

However, 5th District Iowa U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, said Obama continues to “steer the country down the wrong path” with more government intrusion and takeover – most notably via the health-care overhaul that Congress passed and the president signed before his trip to Iowa City. King spoke via hookup from Washington, D.C., to the Ottumwa rally and was slated to do so again before Obama's visit to Quincy, Ill., on Wednesday.

“I'm focusing on the repeal of Obamacare, repeal 100 percent of it, pull it out by the roots and not leave one single particle of Obamacare DNA left behind,” King said in an interview. “I'm going to be asking them to turn out and let the president know that we don't want any part of that.”