Midwest, USA - President Obama kicked off his three-day Midwestern tour Monday.  
While the White House bills it as an opportunity for the president to talk about job growth and economic policy, some say the tour is nothing more than a campaign event.  

President Obama visited Minnesota and Iowa Monday,  part of a three-day bus tour to talk with people in their own communities about economic policy and job growth.  
"I'm gonna need your help to make it happen - you've got to send a message to Washington that it's time for games to stop, it's time to put country first," Obama told the crowd in Cannon Falls, Minnesota.

But some critics feel it is more of a 2012 campaign event funded by tax payers.  
During his own campaign stop in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took a jab at the president's bus tour.
 

"The president has set about a bus tour today going to swing states. And frankly I think the American people would rather see him in Washington working on getting this economy going again. He seems to more intent on trying to save his job than to create jobs for the American people."  

David Gergen, CNN Senior Political Analyst, says THE Tour is nothing unusual for a Commander in Chief.  "Other presidents have done this. There was a Brooking study just a few years ago, listing the times that both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton went on tours like this."

Obama will continue on today with an economic forum in Iowa.
Wednesday he will visit Illinois before heading back to Washington.

The president said he will release a detailed plan to boost the economy, create jobs and control the country's deficit when Congress returns to Washington in September.