Obama Hits the Campaign Trail for Robin Carnahan, Harry Reid
President Obama hits the campaign trail today, taking the presidential fundraising machine to important swing states -- Missouri and Nevada.
He's campaigning for Senate hopeful Robin Carnahan in Kansas City, Missouri and then Senate Majority leader Harry Reid later tonight in Las Vegas.
The Missouri Senate race is a battle of Missouri's big political families. Carnahan, the Democratic secretary of state, is taking on Republican Rep. Roy Blunt for the Senate seat currently held by retiring Republican Christopher "Kit" Bond.
Carnahan's father was posthumously elected to the Senate; he died in a plane crash during the campaign in 2000, leaving her mother to fill the seat for a few years. Her brother Russ is a U.S. representative from the St. Louis area. Blunt was Missouri's secretary of state before being elected to Congress in 1997. His son Matt was recently the state's governor.
In Nevada, things may be looking up for Harry Reid. Long believed to face a difficult re-election, Reid will face Republican Sharron Angle in the fall. Angle, a state assemblywoman who won the Republican primary with backing of the Tea Party movement, has taken stances on issues such as Social Security and the Environmental Protection Agency that many consider to be out of the mainstream, giving Reid's chances a boost.
The White House calls Reid a "partner" and an "ally" and says the president will continue to campaign for the four-term incumbent.
"The President has been out here before, and we're going to continue to work hard to make sure that he continues on," said White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton. "Harry Reid is a fighter. That's where he started his career. That's what he's doing right now. And we have no doubt that this is going to be a competitive race. But of course we're confident that he's going to come back and continue to be our Leader, come next year."
Burton also outlined the overall White House campaign strategy: "The president is going to be out talking about some of the choices that Americans will face as we get closer to the fall here and people go to vote, whether they want to choose someone who is going to continue the progress that we've made or choose someone who's wanting to go back to the policies that got us into the crises that we've been in."
Vice President Joe Biden is also on the trail today; he's in Portland, Oregon campaigning for Rep. Kurt Schrader and California, appearing with Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is facing a tough re-election battle against former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
Interactive Map: CBS News Election 2010 Race Ratings
Robert Hendin is a CBS News White House producer. You can read more of his posts in Hotsheet here.
