In Rust Belt, Obama touts auto industry success

KOKOMO, Ind. - President Barack Obama promoted the revival of the U.S. auto industry yesterday, taking his pitch to the heart of the Rust Belt where a bruising economy has taken its toll on Democrats.

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden toured a rebounding Chrysler transmission plant in this hard-hit industrial city, holding it up as a symbol of the "hope and confidence" of a better economy even while millions are still unemployed and hurting.

"We're coming back," Obama said. "We're on the move."

The visit represents the White House's new focus on showcasing the results behind his administration's politically contentious economic stimulus and the bailouts of Chrysler and General Motors.

In a sobering development that underscored the president's economic difficulties, the Federal Reserve lowered its outlook for the economy through 2011, citing worse-than-expected growth.

Obama made sure to embrace a new Commerce Department report that the economy grew slightly faster last summer than first thought, benefiting from stronger spending by U.S. shoppers and improved overseas sales of U.S. goods.

The trip to Kokomo, a city Obama visited during his 2008 presidential campaign, came a week after GM's initial public stock offering, a turnabout sign for the bailed-out automaker.

"We made the decision to stand with you because we had confidence in the American workers, and today we know that was the right decision," the president said.

For Obama, the visit was also a chance to promote the $800-billion economic stimulus he pushed through Congress in the early days of his presidency.

Before touring the plant, Obama stopped at the Kokomo Fire Department, which the White House said was able to rehire nine firefighters with help from stimulus money.

The presidential motorcade also stopped at an elementary school where Obama greeted cheering children. The Kokomo-Center Township Consolidated School Districts received more than $12 million in stimulus money, the White House said.

Obama went out of his way to connect with the public, at one point stopping at a small bakery to order pumpkin rolls, apple fritters, cinnamon rolls and doughnuts. In his speech at the Chrysler plant, Obama said that in his "obsessive focus on policy, I neglected some things that matter a lot to people."