The manager of President Barack Obama’s campaign will be on hand for the grand opening of his Arkansas headquarters next week.
Campaign officials say Jim Messina will speak at the opening of the president’s Arkansas campaign office on March 27. The Obama campaign opened its state office in downtown North Little Rock earlier this year.
The president’s re-election campaign is setting up shop in a state where polls show he remains deeply unpopular. Republican nominee John McCain beat Obama by 20 points in Arkansas in the 2008 presidential election.
Though several cabinet officials have visited the state, Obama hasn’t appeared in Arkansas since campaigning for Mike Beebe’s successful gubernatorial bid in 2006.