President Barack Obama listened to a question at a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Ind., on Monday.

President Obama took his case for an $800 billion economic recovery package to one of the most distressed places in America on Monday as he opened a series of campaign-style events intended to press Congress to approve the plan by week’s end.

Wrapping himself in the mandate of his election last November, Mr. Obama sounded like a candidate all over again, scolding greedy Wall Street bankers and pointedly rejecting Republican critics for sticking with what he called a failed philosophy. At one point, he spoke about people with as many as five homes, which sounded like a reference to his opponent last fall, Senator John McCain.

“We can’t wait and see and hope for the best,” Mr. Obama told a packed high school gymnasium that sounded like an election rally. “We can’t posture and bicker and resort to the same failed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place. That was what this election was all about. The American people rejected those ideas because they hadn’t worked. You didn’t send us to Washington because you were hoping for more of the same. You sent us there to change things.”

Mr. Obama used the event to hammer home what he called the benefits of his program of spending and tax breaks, promising that it would create or save nearly 80,000 jobs in Indiana, give 2.5 million state residents a $500 tax credit and provide health care, unemployment benefits and job training for tens of thousands more. Bringing it down to the most local level, he suggested his plan would help rebuild U.S. Highway 31 and build an overpass in Elkhart. read more