Biden mentioned the top three GOP candidates by name for the first time on the trail. Kick-off day for Obama campaign

TOLEDO, Ohio —It’s (almost) on.

Vice President Joe Biden kicked off the 2012 Obama-Biden presidential campaign with a fiery union-hall speech in this northwestern Ohio auto town — and 600 miles away President Barack Obama turned the latest in a line of energy speeches into an amped-up event with the distinct feel of a general-election stump speech.


In one of the nuances that matter greatly to campaigns — and not at all to the general public — Biden ditched the pre-campaign “our opponents” line and lit into them by name, with particular attention to Mitt Romney.

Obama, though, still steered clear.

Both the president and the vice president have been stepping up the number of campaign fundraisers they’ve been attending in recent months, and they’ve delivered early version of their stump speeches at all of them — promoting the administration’s record, talking about the unfinished work ahead and smacking at their opponents. Obama’s even made a habit of none-too-subtle allusions to Romney’s opposition the auto-bailout, going so far as to quote from his New York Times op-ed while still avoiding explicitly identifying its author.

Biden changed that Thursday.

“Gov. Romney [said] ‘Let Detroit go bankrupt… he called [the bailout] worse than bankruptcy,’” Biden shouted, with the gusto of a candidate tired of hearing about a Hillary Clinton mid-game substitution. “Newt Gingrich said [the bailout] was a mistake.”

Biden’s venue was tailored to fit a son of Scranton and Wilmington: An economically stressed, mostly white, blue collar city deeply grateful for an auto bailout which kept the local Jeep/Chrysler plant from going belly-up.

“Hey! I’m back! You’re back! And the industry is back!” shouted Biden to a crowd of about 500 supporters organized in the brown paneled-union hall of Local 12 of the United Auto Workers.

At his event in Largo, Md., Obama was equally bellicose, if not quote as overtly electoral.

Still, he repeatedly veered off the script of his prepared remarks to mock his Republican opponents and drive home his points. Among the most overt ad-libs: the “professional politicians, a lot of the folks who, you know, are running for a certain office, who shall go unnamed” who have been attacking his plans for alternative energy development.

There were, alas, no naming of names — that will wait until the GOP finally selects a nominee, Obama campaign officials say.

Obama suggested that – on energy policy and, by extension, on other issues – those unnamed politicians are backwards.

But he blasted Republicans — who have ripped him for the costly failure of subsidies to Solyndra — for “talking down new sources of energy,” in his address to a friendly crowd at Prince George’s Community College.

Obama — on the defensive over a recent spike in gas prices that has helped sink his approval rating in several recent polls — defended his much-mocked commitment to green energy.

“They dismiss wind power. They dismiss solar power. They make jokes about biofuels. They were against raising fuel standards. I guess they like gas-guzzlers…. They want to be stuck in the past,” he said. “If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail, they must have been founding members of the Flat Earth Society. They would not have believed that the world was round.”

That was a swipe at the whole GOP field, but he saved a special snipe for Newt Gingrich — albeit not by name — and his plan for $2.50 gas.

“Why not $2.40? Why not $2.10?” Obama asked, dismissing the plan as just “a cute bumper sticker line.”

At an event in Lake in the Hills, Ill., Thursday afternoon, Gingrich read from Obama’s speech and then offered a retort: “He is a member of the Sierra Club Flat Earth Society.”

“My prediction is there are going to be remarkably few safe Democratic precincts if we drive home $10 with him, $2.50 with me,” Gingrich said. “I think you’re going to see an amazing number of people saying, no, I can’t afford Barack Obama.”

Romney’s campaign, meanwhile, fired back by press release.

“In 2007, Vice President Biden said he didn’t believe Barack Obama was ready to be president. More than four years later, it’s clear that he was right,” campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement.

Obama campaign officials said the themes struck by Biden and his boss at their dueling events created a thematic template for the upcoming campaign — a battle between the privileged and everybody else, a party stuck in the past versus a president looking to the future.

But the vice president, who recounted his own economic insecurities as a child in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a town not that different culturally from Toledo, is a blunter rhetorical weapon, a sock full of pennies to Obama’s stiletto.

“Stated simply, we’re about promoting the private sector,” said Biden who is giving a series of similar speeches in battleground states over the next few weeks, with the next one in Florida. “They’re about protecting the privileged sector… We’re a fair shot, and a fair shake. They’re about no rules, no risk and no accountability.”

The Obama campaign greeted Biden’s trip to Ohio with a new image on its homepage: The Vice President in aviator sunglasses with one foot up on a stool, and a banner announcing, “Welcome Joe back to the trail.” And Thursday night, the campaign will premiere the full version of a promotional film by Davis Guggenheim, the same man behind the Obama biographical video shown at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

White House press secretary Jay Carney, though, said he doesn’t see any evidence of significant movement toward a campaign.

“I still maintain that the president is still spending the vast preponderance of his time on his official duties, as is everyone who works here. There is a campaign, of course, and it is active and doing the things that it does,” Carney said, adding later, “We are a long way from the point where that becomes a significant part of his schedule.”

Carney dismissed the idea that Obama’s Thursday event was anything more than an energy speech, adding that using the term “Flat Earth Society” to refer to Republican presidential candidates who oppose new energy development was appropriate, and not a political message.

“No,” Carney said, “it is a policy message.”

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said that "over 100 fundraisers under their belt and more speeches in battleground states than we can count, it is clear Team Obama's priority is securing his job for another four years."

But, she said, "The problem for Obama and Biden is that a campaign speech and a Hollywood movie aren't going to change the fact that Americans aren't feeling better off now than when this administration began. From rising gas and food prices to healthcare and jobs, this administration has a lot of work to do to earn back the trust of American voters."

Biden — speaking in the most critical section of perhaps the most critical swing state — sneered at GOP claims that the bailout could have prevented if private firms had stepped in to save the companies, instead of the limited federal takeover.

“No one,” he added, “including Bain Capital was stepping up” to save the industry, a pointed barb at the private investment firm Romney once ran.

Republicans have criticized the bailout frequently on the campaign trail, accusing Obama of opting for big-government fixes at the expense of the private sector.

It’s a message that resonates with self-reliant working-class voters, but it’s a hard sell here in a northwest Ohio city that lives and dies by the auto industry, especially its Jeep plant.

“I think it’s about time someone stated the case this clearly,” said Cindy Bartley, 55, from Toledo who works two part-time jobs — one at J.C. Penney to replace the full-time kitchen design job she lost during the great recession.

“I have three family members in the auto parts industry and one son in the Air Force, I love this country, and we need someone to express what we are thinking.”

He said Obama has a “spine of steel,” adding, “The verdict is in: President Obama was right and his critics were dead wrong.’

Not everyone in the hall was entirely happy.

“The economy around here, well, I’d say it sucks,” said Charlene Haas, a retiree from the Toledo suburb of Maumee. “I’m sick of all these rich guys from Washington… My solution is to run them all out of Washington.”

Back on the East Coast, Obama basked in a flood of “four more years!” cheers among the predominately African American crowd in Maryland.

Rather than heading right back to the White House on a sunny and warm day, Obama made a classic campaign trail-style stop for lunch, at Texas Ribs & BBQ in Clinton. The president ordered two racks of baby back ribs and some brisket before working the room, chatting and signing autographs.

“Thanks for your service,” he said to some diners who work at Joint Base Andrews. “I’m standing between you and the last bite.”

Jennifer Epstein reported from Arlington, Va.