Obama launches reelection campaign

President Barack Obama launched Monday his campaign for reelection, 20 months before voters go to the polls in November 2012.

"We're doing this now because the politics we believe in does not start with expensive TV ads or extravaganzas, but with you - with people organizing block-by-block, talking to neighbors, co-workers, and friends. And that kind of campaign takes time to build," Obama said on the video announcing the start of his campaign.

The president seems unlikely to face a challenge in the Democratic primaries.

Despite the difficulties of a presidential term marked by wars and economic crisis, most Democrats continue to view the first black president as a good bet.

Perhaps his strategists hope that the "fourth day of the fourth month" for the reelection of the 44th president will mean the announcement is made under a lucky star, but for Republicans it comes at a bad time.

Fox News called the announcement "ironic" because it was made at a very difficult time for the nation, with unemployment at 8.8 percent and many unanswered questions about concerns like America's military intervention in Libya.

Republicans don't see this as the best moment to say "Yes, we can," the slogan popularized by the president in his first campaign.

Starting now, all of Obama's electoral machinery will be in motion and, more important, so will the process of collecting funds for what is expected to be the first $1 billion political campaign.

This month the president plans to take part in fund-raising events in Chicago, which will again be the campaign's base, as well as in San Francisco and Los Angeles, two important Democratic strongholds.

Obama, as he himself said in the video launching the campaign, will continue to be "focused on the job you elected me to do," but will alternate his duties as head of state with events of this kind.

Republicans, meanwhile, are struggling with internal tensions that are more obvious with a Democrat in the White House, and has a dozen politicians weighing their chances of successfully entering the electoral battle.

Among these are Alaska's Sarah Palin, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who promoted the "Contract with America" campaign that in 1994 managed to unify a Republican Party as demoralized as it is today, and erstwhile Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who lost the 2008 Republican presidential nomination to John McCain.

None of them seems strong enough to overshadow Obama, who, though he did not achieve economic recovery and has the nation bogged down in 2 1/2 wars, appears to be a more reliable vote-getter than any of his potential rivals.

Obama seeks to preserve the changes made during his first term and raise his followers' awareness of the fact that these achievements can be lost.

"We've always known that lasting change wouldn't come quickly or easily. It never does," he said Monday.