Obama kicks off 2012 re-election through e-mail

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama launched his 2012 re-election campaign on Monday, framing his final stint as a candidate as an effort to cement and expand the policies he has enacted from the White House.

Obama, a Democrat who won a sweeping victory over Republican Senator John McCain in 2008 with a message of change, said in a low-key e-mail to supporters that he was filing papers to start his re-election bid in a formal way.

"So even though I'm focused on the job you elected me to do, and the race may not reach full speed for a year or more, the work of laying the foundation for our campaign must start today," he said in the e-mail.