Going for another term

Charles Thomas has the story at ABC.com:

President Barack Obama announced his intentions to run for president in 2012 through a video on his website with his new campaign slogan: "It begins with us."
The official start of President Obama's second White House bid comes twenty months before the
election in November of 2012.BarackObama.com launched a video before dawn on the fourth day of the fourth month to symbolize the 44th president's re-election effort. The president is getting a head start on the Republicans who, so far, are without a clear frontrunner for their 2012 nomination.
The Obama campaign will be headquartered in the historic Prudential building near Chicago's lakefront, and will include several faces familiar from the president's successful 2008 run:

David Axelrod, the former White House political guru, now back in his hometown.
Former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs will direct communications.
Former White House aide Jim Messina will be the campaign manager.
Bonus help is available from former Obama chief of staff, mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, who will be working three blocks away on Randolph Street. "I will help the president. I'm pleased that Chicago will be the headquarters. But my first and primary goal will be what the voters asked me to do which is to solve the problems facing them here, immediately at home," Emanuel told ABC.

The announcement also comes following the Labor Department's release of unemployment numbers showing the nation's jobless rate had fallen to 8.8 percent after topping ten percent eighteen months ago.
Republicans nationally, as well as locally, believe that jobs and the economy will be central issues in 2012. "I don't think the president's got high marks for his handling of the economy and the debt that he has thrust upon our nation is intolerable, and the majority of Americans don't like his health care plan," said Senator Kirk Dillard.
The president, who reportedly could raise and spend as much as $1 billion in his campaign, will make one of his first 2012 fundraising appearances in Chicago this month as polls suggest he remains popular in his home city and state.
Illinois' new Republican senator Mark Kirk says he will buck the trend and support whomever his party nominates to face the president and that Obama's announcement this morning will speed up the selection process. "Now that the president is an announced candidate, people are going to begin to take a look at the Republican field," said Kirk.
Another advantage for the president is that, so far, it does not appear he will face a primary challenge from within his own party, leaving him more money to spend against the Republicans. But Democrats as well as Republicans interviewed agreed that the economy will be the big issue in 2012 and, if Obama can keep the unemployment rate headed in the right direction, it will help him rebuild his 2008 coalition.