Though Republicans still love to portray him as an urban elite, President Obama managed to more or less split the rural vote with John McCain during last year's election. Now, the White House is mounting a summer-long effort to help tailor the administration's agenda to small-town America.

Obama on Tuesday announced a rural tour that will see Cabinet secretaries fan out across the country to discuss issues including broadband deployment, rural health, economic development and agriculture. The tour begins on Wednesday, when Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visit Wattsburg, Pa., to discuss telecommunications issues.

"Rural America is vast and diverse, and different communities face different challenges and opportunities," Obama said in a statement. "That's why we're going out to hear directly from the people of rural America about their needs and concerns and what my administration can do to support them."

President Obama’s budget hit list is out today, and it includes a notable leftover from the Bush administration’s hit list: Even Start, a family literacy program created by a former Republican chairman of the House education committee.

Like the Bush administration before it, the Obama administration says it’s time to get rid of the Even Start program, currently budgeted at $66 million a year, because it doesn’t work. “The most recent evaluation found no difference between families in the program and those not in it across 38 of 41 outcomes,” Office of Management and Budget chairman Peter Orszag notes in a blog post on the White House Web site.

It certainly doesn’t sound promising. Here’s the catch, though: According to the administration’s Terminations, Reductions and Savings volume, the “most recent evaluation” was done in 2003.