It's an advantage enjoyed by every incumbent president seeking re-election -- and a disadvantage endured by his challengers. And though the White House has said the trip is not political, Mr. Obama has repeatedly used his speeches to take Republicans to task for opposing the provisions of his jobs bill.

 

 

 

"They said no to putting teachers and construction workers back on the job," the president said yesterday in Asheville. "They said no to rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our airports. They said no to cutting taxes for middle-class families and small businesses when all they've been doing is cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans."

He continued: "They want to gut regulations; they want to let Wall Street do whatever it wants. They want to drill more. And they want to repeal health care reform. That's their jobs plan."

 

 

 

On the Senate floor Monday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., raised concerns about the partisan rhetoric from his 2008 presidential rival. 

 

 

 

"In fact, I was somewhat taken aback, since the president and his spokesperson had billed his trip as a taxpayer-paid visit," said McCain.

He said Mr. Obama has the right to express his views about GOP policies but wondered, "is that appropriate on the taxpayers' dime? Since it is clearly campaigning."

 

 

 

A day before the trip begin, White House officials held a conference call with reporters and repeatedly made the case that the president's trip was about the jobs bill, not his re-election, even though he was traveling in states he won in 2008 and wants to keep in his column next year as well.

 

 

 

Some of Mr. Obama's bus trip events had the sound and feel of campaign rallies. As he arrived in Asheville for his first event, his audience on the tarmac chanted, "Four more years!"

And Mr. Obama himself would shift into the higher-decibel, campaign-style cadence that served him so well as a candidate for president three years ago.

 

 

 

If this bus trip was billed as a political journey, his campaign and/or the Democratic party would be paying the costs, but not as much as his presidential challengers might. He could still ride the 747s that serve as Air Force One, and pay only a small pro-rated portion of the expense, as per Federal Election Commission rules.

 

 

 

To date, the White House has refused repeated requests from CBS News to disclose its calculations of how much the Obama campaign or DNC must reimburse the government for Mr. Obama's political travel expenses.