Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama greet suporters after a campaign event Saturday at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus, Ohio.

RICHMOND, Virginia -- In back-to-back speeches in two key swing states, the Obama campaign indicated how it wants to define the general election: as a choice between a tool of congressional Republicans who wants to undo the president’s first-term agenda and an incumbent looking to spend the next four years building on his achievements.

The president seemed to tie his presumptive Republican challenger Mitt Romney to Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which Democrats use to represent congressional Republicans’ entire agenda. Obama warned that in Romney, the House GOP had a candidate who would be willing to gut Medicare and end regulations on insurance companies and banks – policies “that created this mess,” the president said.

“After a long and spirited primary, Republicans in Congress have found a nominee for president who has promised to rubber-stamp this agenda if he gets the chance,” Obama said at Ohio State University, his first stop of the day, later adhering to the same script at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

“We cannot give him that chance,” Obama continued.

The president also sought to define himself in his two speeches Saturday, employing populist themes that touch on those of several past presidential campaigns while remaining entirely unique to the Obama campaign. Using a sort of “values play” evocative of the pitches used by the Clinton campaign, the president’s wife, Michelle, underscored that he grew up in an environment where everybody played by the rules, sometimes struggling to get by.

“He is the son of a single mother who struggled to put herself through school and pay the bills.  That’s who he is.  He’s the grandson of a woman who woke up before dawn every day to catch a bus to her job at the bank,” the first lady said of her husband in Columbus.

“So believe me, Barack knows what it means when a family struggles,” she continued.

Michelle Obama’s speech also employed a tactic from George W. Bush’s re-election campaign, in which the incumbent is portrayed as the familiar choice against an unknown risk.

“We all know what Barack Obama is -- who he is,” she said. “We all know what our president stands for, right?” she implored the audience.

There’s also a little bit of Harry Truman’s campaign evident in Obama’s pitch, as he warns supporters that they need to re-elect him in order to stop “those guys” in Congress who are threatening to pass items like the Ryan budget.

“As long as I’m president of the United States, I will never allow Medicare to be turned into a voucher that would end the program as we know it,” Obama said. “That’s what’s at stake in this election.”

And in preventing Republicans from accomplishing their agenda, Obama is arguing, the lives of average Americans will continue to improve – even as he acknowledges they are not where they need to be currently.

So in a twist of Ronald Reagan’s “are you better off than you were four years ago” trope, which Romney is using, the president is asking his supporters if they think they are on the right direction to being better off, say, four years from now.

The real question, he said, “is not just about how we’re doing today. It’s about how we’ll be doing tomorrow.”

Obama drops gloves vs Romney in campaign launch

“Will we better off if more Americans get a better education? That’s the question. Will we better off if we depend less on foreign oil and more on our own ingenuity? That's the question.”

The decision to re-ask a different question to the "are you better off" refrain is a tacit acknowledgment by the campaign that the "are you better off" question isn't an easy one for voters to answer in the affirmative for Obama.

While his stump speech did copy some pages from past playbooks, one aspect of most presidential re-election pitches was absent from the president’s opening salvo: the introduction of a clear second-term agenda.

Instead, the president’s stump speech was all about protecting his first-term achievements like the health care reform law and developing alternative energy sources. And while, historically, second terms are mostly about preserving such accomplishments, there is usually at least a vague nod to what the president wants to get done in a second term.

But that was missing in Saturday’s speeches. Perhaps by the convention, the president will have a more direct pitch about what another four years will look like.

All about field operations
This election will likely be decided on the two groups of swing voters in American politics: that tiny slice of independents who actually do vacillate between the two parties, making up maybe 8 to 10 percent of the entire electorate, and those swing voters who “swing” between voting and not voting.

And while the Obama campaign will hold rallies like the two Saturday to generate media buzz, their more immediate concern is that they connect with exactly these swing voters – especially the second subset – which both the president and first lady seemed to make clear.

“We are going to win this thing the old-fashioned way,” the president said, emphasizing the need to go door to door and establish neighborhood-by-neighborhood teams of volunteers.

The first lady made a pitch directly to college students who, along with African-Americans, are the two groups who came out in the strongest numbers for the president but also run high risk of staying home in 2012.

“To all of the college students out there, all of you -- if you're going to be moving over the summer, remember to register at your new address in the fall. You got that? Get that done,” she urged.

Lost energy?
The crowds at Ohio State University’s Schottenstein Center were screaming enthusiastically, waving signs and chanting “Four more years! Four more years!”

But the arena did not reach its full capacity of 18,300, with about 4,000 of those seats remaining unfilled. Observers of the 2008 race know that the first Obama campaign would have been able to fill every seat.

But the crowds at both OSU and VCU were more enthusiastic than any so far at a Romney rally. And while the Republican Party has joyfully pointed out that the Obama campaign isn’t generating the same excitement that it did in 2008, the only campaign that has gotten more than 5,000 folks to show up is Ron Paul's, not Romney's.

And while the GOP has fun pointing out that Obama 12 isn't inspiring the response that Obama 08 is, it's worse for the party out of power. The real reason? This is going to be a negative campaign. And negative campaigns involving incumbents are simply different beasts.

It's a campaign in which both sides are painting a pessimistic view of life if the other side wins.

The Obama campaign did flex muscle the Romney campaign has yet to show: It can throw a big rally with supporters who are still gaga for their candidate. The little things that win close elections are something Team Obama is proving fairly adept at. Can Team Romney keep up on this front? It's an open question.

BEDFORD, NH-- Maybe it was sharing the stage with N.J. Gov. Chris Christie last night that did it, but Mitt Romney was ready to engage when Occupy protesters disrupted his rally for the second night in a row. 

As chants of "Live Free or Die, Always Occupy" broke out in a familiar refrain, and police closed in, Romney did something few in the hall expected, or had seen before. He told one protester to stop shouting and ask a real question.

"How about instead of shouting, why don't you say what you think, say your view. What’s your view madam, what do you think?" Romney asked. 

While the question was unclear - the protester was deep in the crowd - Romney's answer unambiguously laid the elevated role of money in presidential politics squarely at the feet of President Obama.

"The answer is, this president is spending money and has spent money, we have had over the history of this country a public funding plan for our presidents, and you know what? This president has been the first one to throw aside the public funding program to break all those barriers and to spend massively more than any president in history," Romney said. "This country is too important to hand over to President Obama for a second term."

In 2008, then candidate Obama chose to forgo matching public financing for his campaign, and ultimately spent a record $747 million dollars pursuing the White House - a controversial decision at the time. Romney had spent $17.6 million dollars this election cycle through the end of September, according to the latest filing data available.

With the crowd energized, the frontrunner Romney closed out his stump speech by urging the supporters to vote in tomorrow's primary, telling them "you're going to make a big statement tomorrow."

GOFFSTOWN, PLYMOUTH, and DURHAM, NH -- Just days after Mitt Romney's New Jersey surrogate, Gov. Chris Christie, hit the road for Romney in Iowa, another New Jersey leader, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, yesterday campaigned for President Obama here in New Hampshire, where he criticized of Romney's oft-cited "private sector experience" and issued a few jabs at Christie himself.

"I like to punish people with facts," Booker told students at University of New Hampshire on Friday. "The other side often tries to distract you from the facts. Look at Mitt Romney's first ad! Blatant lies. You can't let people get away with that."

Booker, seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party, questioned the flagship credential of Romney's campaign: business and private-sector experience.

“There is no natural correlation between private sector business experience and how you’re going to do,” Booker told reporters in Plymouth.

“Unfortunately New Jersey is seeing that right now with the private-sector business experience of our former governor and the challenges that he’s facing right now,” Booker added, citing former New Jersey Gov. and Sen. Jon Corzine (D), who has found himself in the epicenter of a controversy surrounding MF Global, a brokerage firm. “Is it the private -ector business experience of a Bernie Madoff?”

“Now, I’m not comparing Romney to those folks with all due respect," Booker said. "But I'm saying to you if you look at the presidents we all respect: Abraham Lincoln was a failure at business, was one of our greatest presidents. FDR didn't have private-sector business experience, but did a great job. John F. Kennedy was a phenomenal president that didn't have business experience. Those are false arguments. The reality is who has the better plan for the United States of America."

The Newark mayor, who has been considering a run for Senate and New Jersey governor, also jabbed his state's chief executive, Gov. Christie. Booker joked with students in Durham, "There's a very shy governor of my state -– you probably haven't heard of him because he's very soft spoken."

"My governor is a very pugilistic man, and he's up here punching at my president like crazy, saying outrageous stuff," Booker added. "I can't believe.. that the president is an 'appeaser.' I'm going to keep punishing people with the facts."

The Romney campaign was quick to respond to Booker's comments.

"The Obama Campaign’s decision to deploy a top surrogate to disparage private sector experience is insulting to New Hampshire small business owners and reminds voters of how out of touch this Administration is," Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said in response to Booker's comments.

Booker did not stop at Romney. He bluntly criticized the entire Republican presidential field.

"Most of them don't even believe in global warming. The other side doesn't believe that we should have expanded Pell grants," he said at Plymouth State University. "The other side doesn't believe that we should have greater equal rights for all Americans. The other side is attacking things that would help the middle class like having a payroll tax cut.

At each stop, Booker implored students and voters across New Hampshire to get out and fight against a "state of sedentary agitation" that he sees in the United States. He admitted Obama's health-care plan "was not perfect," but reminded voters that "change" required a sustained effort and a second term for Obama. His three-stop tour of Saint Anselm College, Plymouth State University, and University of New Hampshire was an effort to help win back young voters Obama may have lost during his first term.

"But I'm not just here to say vote for this guy," Booker said. "This is a state where we need people to get more organized, more involved. Wherever this state goes, it could take the whole country as well. The leadership in this state is critical in the coming months."

NEWBERRY, S.C. – Newt Gingrich made President Obama his only target in a town hall here tonight, describing what he believes would be a brutal general election fight against the president.  

“In January 2012, Gingrich-Obama campaign will come down to two questions: Can you endure the pain of four more years of radical incompetence, which would be my argument, and, can I survive the weight of negativity, smears, assaults and lies that they’re going to throw?” Gingrich said.

Speaking to a packed Newberry Opera House after a fundraising barbecue for the South Carolina Republican Party, Gingrich added that the Obama campaign is already attacking Republican candidates because the president can’t highlight his first-term record.

“Watch their first ambushes against Romney and ask yourselves this question: Why would a president of the United States run an attack ad in November before there’s even a Republican nominee? It’s because they’ve got nothing positive to say about three and a half years of failure.”

While the Democratic National Committee and pro-Obama Super-PAC Priorities USA (run by former Obama administration officials) have already begun to attack Mitt Romney, the Obama campaign itself has not, releasing its first ad, a direct appeal to voters from the president, today. 

Gingrich dared Obama to run a strictly positive campaign, saying it would greatly reduce his re-election chances, although Gingrich seemed uninterested in doing so himself, referring to the president as a “Saul Alinsky radical” at least three times during the town hall.

The twenty-year congressman and former House speaker’s criticism of Washington was not limited to the president, as he also slammed members of Congress for making insider trades, saying newly-elected members should have to keep their assets in blind trusts.

“It is so clear that they have so much power that there is no way to build trust in an environment where they can make money out of what they’re doing,” Gingrich said.

He also suggested that Congress’ record-low approval ratings are a threat to the country. “You can’t sustain freedom in a country where that level of contempt exists for one of the key institutions of self-government.”

Gingrich also criticized inside-the-Beltway political consultants, suggesting former President George W. Bush’s team could have had a bigger win in the 2004 re-election campaign if they had listened to Gingrich’s advice.

“In the summer of 2004 I wrote a paper for the Bush campaign arguing that [Democratic nominee John] Kerry was vulnerable to a catastrophic defeat,” Gingrich said, noting Kerry’s liberal voting record. “And I couldn’t get the consultants to agree to run a campaign based on ideas,” he added in remarks reminiscent of those he made after former campaign staffers resigned en masse in June.

“My campaign consultants understood 30-second attack ads,” Gingrich said on Fox and Friends on June 15th. “They didn’t understand you could actually write a book with big ideas and actually campaign talking about big ideas.”

Absent from his remarks tonight was any real criticism of Mitt Romney, although Gingrich generated attention for saying he is “a lot more conservative than Mitt Romney” during a radio interview with a Charleston station on Monday morning.

It has become the new Republican attack on President Obama: He thinks Americans are lazy.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney leveled that charge yesterday while campaigning in South Carolina. "Sometimes, I just don't think that President Obama understands America," he said. "I say that because this week -- or was it last week? -- he said that Americans are lazy. I don't think that describes America."

Today, Rick Perry uses the line of attack in a new TV ad. "Can you believe that?" Perry says to the camera. "That's what our president thinks is wrong with America? That Americans are lazy?"

And even in the contest for New Mexico's open Senate seat, Republican candidate Heather Wilson called on the Democrats running for the race to repudiate Obama's remarks.

“President Obama ... said the reason we’re not creating more jobs in this country is because Americans have been ‘lazy’,” she said. “He's wrong about the American people and he's wrong to have criticized America in front of the world."

But when you examine what Obama said on Saturday -- to business leaders at the APEC summit in Hawaii -- it's pretty clear that his critics are taking him out of context. He wasn't calling Americans lazy; rather, he was calling U.S. business practices to attract foreign investors lazy. In fact, you could interpret his full remarks as a call to arms to improve on that front.

MR. McNERNEY: I think one related question, looking at the world from the Chinese side, is what they would characterize as impediments to investment in the United States. And so that discussion I’m sure will be part of whatever dialogue you have. And so how are you thinking about that?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, this is an issue, generally. I think it’s important to remember that the United States is still the largest recipient of foreign investment in the world. And there are a lot of things that make foreign investors see the U.S. as a great opportunity -- our stability, our openness, our innovative free market culture.

But we’ve been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted -- well, people will want to come here and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America. And so one of things that my administration has done is set up something called SelectUSA that organizes all the government agencies to work with state and local governments where they’re seeking assistance from us, to go out there and make it easier for foreign investors to build a plant in the United States and put outstanding U.S. workers back to work in the United States of America.

And we think that we can do much better than we’re doing right now. Because of our federalist system, sometimes a foreign investor comes in and they’ve got to navigate not only federal rules, but they’ve also got to navigate state and local governments that may have their own sets of interests. Being able to create if not a one-stop shop, then at least no more than a couple of stops for people to be able to come into the United States and make investments, that’s something that we want to encourage.

This GOP attack -- that Obama thinks Americans are lazy -- is the latest Republican suggestion that the president is somehow un-American or espouses anti-American views.

Previously, Republicans have (falsely) accused him of apologizing for America or not believing in American exceptionalism (when, in fact, he said he believes in it).

*** UPDATE *** Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt emails First Read: “Rick Perry and Mitt Romney apparently don’t think the president should encourage CEOs to promote the United States abroad in order to create American jobs and attract investment at home.  They have opposed the president’s efforts to create 2 million jobs now and instead of laying out their own plan to do so, they have endorsed a radical budget plan that would wipe out investments necessary to create jobs in programs like education, research and development and clean energy and shift a greater tax burden away from millionaires and billionaires onto the backs of the middle class and seniors.”

“In public Sunday, President Obama was at a summit unsuccessfully leaning on Russia and China to back diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuke program,” the New York Daily News writes. “In private Sunday, there was more evidence of an efficient and brutal covert operation that continues to degrade Iran’s military capabilities. Iranian officials revealed that one of the 17 men killed in a huge explosion at a munitions depot was a key Revolutionary Guard commander who headed Iran’s missile program. … Iran said the army base explosion was an accident and the new Duqu virus was contained. But Israeli newspapers and some U.S. experts said it appeared to be more from an ongoing secret operation by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat.”

“Using some of his toughest language yet against China, Obama, a day after face-to-face talks with President Hu Jintao, demanded that China stop ‘gaming’ the international system and create a level playing field for U.S. and other foreign businesses,” msnbc.com writes. President Obama said of China, “Enough’s enough. … "We're going to continue to be firm that China operate by the same rules as everyone else. We don't want them taking advantage of the United States." And: “He said China, which often presents itself as a developing country, is now ‘grown up’ and should act that way in global economic affairs.”

At APEC in Hawaii, Obama also criticized the GOP field on using torture, the New York Post writes: “Let me just say this: They’re wrong. It’s contrary to our ideals. That’s not who we are. That’s not how we operate.”

A Politico/GW poll shows Obama’s approval at 44%-51%. He also beats Romney 49%-43%, but is tied with a generic Republican, 43%-43%.

“With her mother’s cadence and her father’s gift for extemporaneous speaking, Chelsea Clinton wowed the crowd Saturday night at a major fund-raiser for the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston,” The Boston Globe’s Glen Johnson reports, pointing out that “Most Americans have never heard Chelsea Clinton speak, even though she is 31.”

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton steps down as Secretary of State, it will be the first time a Clinton hasn’t held government office since 1982.

Quinnipiac polls in key states out this morning show: In Florida, Mitt Romney leading Obama, 45%-42%; In Ohio, Obama leading Romney, 45%-42%; and in Pennsylvania, Obama and Romney in a statistical dead heat with Obama edging Romney, 44%-43%.

“White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley was pitched to Capitol Hill as the guy who could cut deals with a resurgent GOP, but it hasn’t turned out that way amid this year’s series of debt crises and gridlock,” Roll Call writes, adding, “[S]everal senior Democratic aides told Roll Call that they feel Daley had already become marginalized in recent months — with Rouse and other White House aides increasing their contacts on Capitol Hill.”

Not long after it was clear that Ohio voters were going to reject Gov. John Kasich's (R) anti-collective-bargaining law last night, Republicans began referring to the outcome of a different Ohio ballot measure -- over a health-care mandate.

The Republican National Committee sent this email to reporters today:

"[M]ost telling of all was in the battleground state of Ohio where Ohioans voted down a state collective bargaining initiative but overwhelmingly voted to repudiate one of Obama’s signature first term policies in Obamacare." 

The RNC is correct that the health-care referendum -- which won by a wider margin than the referendum on collective bargaining -- is a rebuke to the kind of individual mandate that President Obama signed into law in 2010.

But it also could be seen as a rebuke to the kind of individual mandate that Mitt Romney -- the odds-on favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination -- also signed into law in Massachusetts. Just take a look at the language of the Ohio ballot measure (which didn't directly refer to Obama or to the federal health law):

1. In Ohio, no law or rule shall compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in a health care system.

2. In Ohio, no law or rule shall prohibit the purchase or sale of health care or health insurance.

3. In Ohio, no law or rule shall impose a penalty or fine for the sale or purchase of healthcare or health insurance.

Romney has maintained that it would be "wrong" for the nation adopt Massachusetts' health-care law. "In the last campaign, I was asked, is this something that you would have the whole nation do?" he said at the last debate in Las Vegas. "And I said, no, this is something that was crafted for Massachusetts. It would be wrong to adopt this as a nation."

But back in 2007, he said it's "a good model for other states."

"Maybe not every state, but most," he stated on "Meet the Press" in Dec 2007.

Two weeks ago, Romney received scrutiny for failing to take a position on Ohio's collective-bargaining measure, after he stopped by a Ohio GOP phone bank in support of Kasich's law. Romney later said it backed it. 

Tellingly, however, he never took a position on Ohio's individual-mandate referendum.  

*** UPDATE *** The Washington Post's Greg Sargent has a similar piece on the Ohio individual-mandate referendum. 

“Former President Bill Clinton criticizes President Obama for his handling of the debt ceiling in a new book, arguing that Obama should have increased the limit while Democrats still controlled Congress,” The Hill writes. Clinton says that last summer's political fight over the debt limit and the risk of defaulting on the debt made the U.S. look ‘weak and confused,’ according to the Associated Press, which received an advance copy of Clinton's book, titled ‘Back to Work.’”

AP

President Barack Obama (left) campaigning for former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (right) in Holmdel, N.J., July 16, 2009. Corzine lost reelection to Republican Chris Christie.

Jon Corzine, now the center of an FBI investigation into the handling of hundreds of millions of dollars invested in his securities firm, was one of the leading Wall Street fundraisers for President Obama’s campaign and suggested to investors that he might take a top administration post if the president were re-elected.

His new legal troubles, sparked by the bankruptcy filing of his investment firm, MF Global, could complicate the president’s efforts to raise money from the financial community given Corzine’s central role in those efforts.

A recent list of top “bundlers” or elite fundraisers released by Obama’s campaign listed Corzine in the highest category -- reporting that he had raised more than $500,000 for the campaign. A substantial chunk of those funds were collected at a $35,800 per ticket fundraiser that Corzine hosted at his wife’s spacious Fifth Avenue apartment last April -- an event that was touted at the time as part of a concerted effort by the president’s campaign team to reach out to well-heeled Wall Street donors who had been alienated by some of his policies and previous public comments.  

Just a few months after that event, Corzine’s firm, MF Global, surprised many Wall Street investors by issuing highly unusual securities notes that appeared to highlight Corzine’s close relationship with the White House: The notes suggested that the former New Jersey governor might be in line for a top administration post should the president get re-elected.

The notes promised to pay an extra 1% in interest rates in the event of “the departure of Mr. Corzine as our full time chief executive officer due to his appointment to a federal position by the President of the United States and his confirmation…by the United States Senate prior to July 1, 2013.”

Some veteran Wall Street analysts said they couldn’t recall ever seeing such a contingency written into securities notes. “It was bizarre,” said Christopher Whalen, a Wall Street analyst.

There was speculation in the financial press at the time that Corzine might be a candidate to replace Tim Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury. But today, an Obama campaign official declined to comment on Corzine’s legal troubles -- or whether Corzine was ever being considered for an appointment.

“He’s one of our volunteer fundraisers,” said the campaign official when asked about Corzine, adding that the president’s is the only presidential campaign that discloses the identities of its bundlers.

The investigation into Corzine’s firm, MF Global, was triggered by reports of hundreds of millions of dollars in missing funds and findings by regulators that MF Global may have broken rules requiring it to keep client’s money and company funds in separate accounts.

Ironically, on the same day that Corzine’s legal troubles were erupting -- posing potential problems for the president’s Wall Street fundraising efforts -- GOP rival Mitt Romney was holding one of his biggest New York fundraisers yet at a midtown Manhattan hotel.

A copy of the invite shows the fundraiser had more than 100 co-chairs, many of them top executives on Wall Street such as hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson, who has already donated $1 million to a “Super PAC” backing Romney’s candidacy. 

As Herman Cain contends with the media scrum and as Rick Perry has begun his TV ad blitz in Iowa, Mitt Romney has kept a relatively low profile so far this week.

And that's given him time to continue bracketing President Obama. After the president yesterday conducted interviews with nine local TV affiliates, as well as with Hearst Television, Romney's campaign reached out to these same affiliates. And today, Romney has interviews with three of them: KUSA in Denver; WTVT in Tampa, FL; and KTRK in Houston.

Earlier this morning, the Romney campaign also released an email jabbing at Obama's statements in these affiliate interviews. “President Obama has stepped off his campaign bus and taken the Magical Misery Tour nationwide," said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul in a statement. "Unfortunately, more political rhetoric and blame-shifting can’t make up for the abject failure of President Obama’s policies over the last three years. Americans know that it’s time for new leadership in the White House.”