Via WSJ:
When President Barack Obama jets to Scranton, Pa., Wednesday to promote his jobs package, he’ll log his 56th event in a presidential battleground state this year, putting him well ahead of President George W. Bush’s record-breaking swing-state travel in 2003.
Mr. Obama’s extensive travels this year have opened the president to criticism from Republicans that he is intertwining campaigning and governing at a time when he has called for bipartisanship on intractable national problems. Most of the cost is typically born by taxpayers.
Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 17 of his third year in office, Bill Clinton held 40 events over 24 days in the battlegrounds of his time, according to data compiled by Brendan Doherty, a US Naval Academy assistant professor who is widely viewed among political scientists as an expert on presidential travel. Over that same stretch, George W. Bush held 49 events in 34 days, drawing complaints from Democrats. […]
Obama also has granted about 50 interviews this year with local news outlets, the majority from swing states.