Obama was introduced by Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, still ebullient that the president's transportation department granted the city a $10.9 million federal grant for the Riverwalk earlier in the week.
"Those investments are important, ladies and gentleman," Buckhorn declared in a dynamic 8-minute address. "This is not pork. This is not frivolous. This is what make economies grow, and this president understands that."
Obama spoke in Tampa just a couple of hours after addressing the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, where he assailed Romney for opposing the DREAM Act which would offer a legal path to citizenship to young undocumented immigrants brought into the United States illegally by their parents.
Obama also referenced a story in today's Washington Post that reported that the company on which Mitt Romney is centering his campaign ? the private equity firm he ran, Bain Capital ? invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.
?Tampa, we don?t need an outsourcing pioneer in the Oval Office," Obama declared. "We need a president who will fight for American jobs and American manufacturing. And that?s what my plan will do.?
The president repeated several times in his 34-minute speech what he plans to do in his second term. He said he would work on reducing the federal debt, but grew more excited talking about investing in education, in seaports, wireless networks and infrastructure. He said he's pushing for an independent fund that would attract private dollars to issue loans for new construction projects, based on a true need.
"We don't need bridges to nowhere. We need bridges to help businesses move goods and services and people all across the country and all around the world," he said to loud cheers.
In a familiar theme, he hit Romney for supporting tax cuts for the wealthy, and said (as independent studiesalso say) that such tax cuts would do nothing to reduce the debt and deficit, allegedly the most important issue for Republicans (along with reducing the unemployment rolls).
In 2008 Obama spent nearly $750 million, the most any presidential candidate has ever spent in the history of American politics. But it's a different landscape in 2012, and with the advent of a proliferation of super PACS funded by some of the richest men in the world (such as gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson), Obama knows he will be outspent ? perhaps considerably this go around.
As he has in other recent speeches, he told the Tampa audience they can expect to hear ads that talk about how "the economy is bad. How it's all my fault, and I can't fix it because government is always the answer, according to me. Or, because I didn't make a lot of money in the private sector. Or because I'm in over my head. Or because I think everybody's doing just fine. They will have ad after ad after ad and all of them will have scary voices."
He said that may be a plan for the GOP to win an election, but it's not a way to grow the economy or create jobs.
There's been lots of media chatter that Republicans and independents who supported Obama in 2008 are deserting him this year. Less noted are people like Charlie Tucker, a Republican who supported John McCain in '08 who has switched teams in this election cycle. Tucker told CL before the speech that it's been the intransigence of congressional Republicans that persuaded him to make the switch.
"He's the best man for the job," he says of Obama.
"When our Congress can't do their job, and the man stands up there and is not getting the respect that he needs, keeping him from doing his job. I'll back that man all the way. He's in there, he's fighting. He's doing his job. Our Congress is not doing a flippin' thing."
Out and about was adult entrepreneur Joe Redner, who was recently diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Redner told CL that he's over his chemotherapy and radiation treatments and is feeling "a lot better." He said he'd feel even better if Obama were elected this November.
After his speech Obama was scheduled to meet up with a select group of 25 high-end donors who were contributing $20,000 each to get face time with the commander in chief.
But while he needs to get those $20,000 contributions to keep him somewhat in the ballpark financially with the conservative super PACS, he believes it's the so-called ground game that will help him get re-elected.
"I need for you to make some phone calls, I need for you to register your friends...get on Facebook, get on Twitter..I promised you back in 2008 I would always tell you where I stood. And I promised you I would wake up every single day thinking about you. And fighting for you. And Tampa, I have kept that promise. ..I still believe in you. I need for you to still believe in me."
With four and a half months left before the general election, Obama will no doubt be repeating such phrases in Tampa again before November 6.
The re-election team for Barack Obama has a number of different scenarios that show how the president can get to 270 electoral votes in November. Not every scenario includes getting Florida and its 29 electoral votes, but Obama's chances would certainly be greater for a second term if he did win those votes.
On Friday afternoon inside the gymnasium of the Hillsborough Community College main campus in Tampa, the president told the 2,500 people gathered for his speech that his vision for the country has been blocked by a stalemate in Congress.
This isn't a run-of-the-mill stalemate, he said, but "the defining issue of our time. The outcome of this decision, this course, is entirely up to you. It's up to you, the people of Tampa, the people of Florida, the American vision."
According to a Quinnipiac poll taken earlier this week, Obama leads Mitt Romney by a 47-43 percent margin. That was a reversal of a month before in the same survey, where he trailed the former Massachusetts governor by seven percentage points, and was also part of the same survey that showed that a majority of Floridians favor Rick Scott's controversial purge of non-voters and the Stand Your Ground law.
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