Obama turns sentimental in Iowa

US President Barack Obama turned sentimental about the closing days of his re-election campaign in an appeal to the voters in Iowa, a key swing state, who had backed him in 2008.

Standing under a bright yellow gingko tree as he spoke in a town square in Dubuque, Obama asked several thousand supporters to help him win Iowa just one more time.

“I started my presidential journey right here,” the 51- year-old Democrat said as he criss-crossed several swing states like his Republican rival Mitt Romney to seek support of undecided voters.

“After two years of campaigning and after four years as president, you know me by now.

You may not agree with every decision I made, you may have sometimes been frustrated with the pace of change. But you know that I say what I mean and I mean what I say,” Obama said on Saturday.

Five years ago, Democratic caucus participants gave Obama the first win of the primary season, erasing suspicions that the young senator could give a good speech but was not a bona fide contender for the party nomination. He went on to carry the state in the general election  in 2008 with record votes – a memory clearly at the forefront of his mind as he began to count down the rallies remaining until the D-day on November 6.

David Axelrod, Obama’s longest-standing professional advisor, acknowledges sharing a little nostalgia with the president. “He is very cognizant that this is the closing argument of his last campaign,” Axelrod says. “He knows he’s never going to do this again,” the Chicago Tribune quoted him as saying.