Obama Comes To Cincy

President Obama will be here in Cincy today at the AFL-CIO's annual Labor Day Picnic this afternoon, where he will announce his new "manufacturing czar" Ron Bloom.

When President Barack Obama speaks at Coney Island Monday, he is expected to announce that Ron Bloom will be his senior counselor for manufacturing policy.

Bloom, who heads the Treasury Department's auto task force, is traveling with the president to Monday afternoon's annual AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic at Coney. The labor union has distributed 10,000 tickets for the president's afternoon address.

Obama is expected to speak around 1:15 p.m.; gates open at 9:30 a.m.

Bloom will remain head of the auto task force as he takes on the expanded task of working across federal agencies to integrate existing programs and develop new initiatives affecting the manufacturing sector.

According to prepared remarks released by the White House Sunday night, Obama is expected to tell the picnic attendees that he tapped Bloom to coordinate the administration's manufacturing policy because of his extraordinary service on the auto task force and his extensive experience with both business and labor.

"Ron has the knowledge and experience necessary to lead the way in creating the good-paying manufacturing jobs of the future," according to the White House statement. "We must do more to harness the power of American ingenuity and productivity so that we can put people back to work and unleash our full economic potential."

Ohio is still very much union country, folks. Maybe not as much as Michigan or Pennsylvania, but a lot of manufacturing jobs have been lost here lately and Ohio is most certainly a vital state to the Dems. This time last year the national unemployment rate was 3.5% lower. The state badly wants more green manufacturing jobs, and will need them.

I'll have more on the President's speech here later this afternoon.