The Hill News

President Obama on Tuesday made his pitch to Midwestern voters who could turn against him in 2012, saying that his administration's policies helped save a major component of the region's economy. 

Speaking at a Chrysler plant in Kokomo, Ind. Tuesday afternoon, Obama explained that the 2009 auto bailouts helped save jobs across the Midwest, using the plant as a prime success story of how the nation was spared from a full blown depression spurred by the collapse of the auto industry.

{mosads}Obama said that he "knew that the very survival of places like Kokomo were on the line," when he enacted the unpopular bailouts and that recent signs of progress for U.S. automakers vindicate his decision. 

"So here is the lesson. Don't bet against America. Don't bet against the American auto industry. Don't bet against the American auto worker. Don't bet against American ingenuity. Don't bet against us," the president said. "Today we know that was the right decision. We know that was the right decision."

Obama's remarks came on the heels of bailed-out General Motors's announcement last week of its initial public offering, which was the largest stock IPO in American history.

The speech signals that Obama is betting that an economic turnaround could help save him in states such as previously red states like Indiana, which he is in grave danger of losing in his 2012 reelection bid.

In 2008, Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Indiana since 1964, giving him 11 electoral votes upon which the GOP usuall! y relies.

But losses for Democrats in Indiana in the 2010 midterm elections indicate that the state's voters could be ready to abandon the president in two years.

Centrist Rep. Baron Hill (D), who appeared with Obama at the Kokomo event, lost his seat to Republican Todd Young by 10 percentage points. Democrats also lost Democrat Brad Ellsworth's seat by 20 points to Republican Larry Buschon.

Indiana Republicans now hold occupy six of the state's nine congressional seats, both Senate seats, the governor’s office and both houses of the State Legislature. Not to mention that Obama sqeaked by his Republican opponent John McCain by only 26,000 votes in 2008. 

Before the event, White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton downplayed any notion that speech was the first salvo of the 2012 campaign saying that Kokomo was "a place the president visited during the campaign that's seen particularly tough times with unemployment getting ! as high -- getting over 20 percent."

But Obama echoed pa! rt of hi s campaign stump speech on Tuesday, saying that his economic policies have put the country's economy on the right path, touting the fact that Chrysler has decided to invest an additional $800 million in the parts plant and that the overall economy is growing at a faster rate than many had expected.

"Anybody who doesn't believe in the Midwest, anyone who doesn't believe in manufacturing, come to Kokomo," Obama said. "We are moving in the right direction."