The president delivered the message in Wisconsin, a state that will be critical to his re-election prospects, a day after a State of the Union address where he argued that the U.S. has to step up its investments in innovation and infrastructure in order to compete globally and create jobs at home.

The president said that while China invested in clean energy technologies, "we fell down on the job. We weren’t moving as fast as we should have."

"We’re going to need to go all in. We’re going to need to get serious about winning the future," Obama said during a stop at Orion Energy Systems, a power technology company in the town of Manitowoc. Obama showcased Orion as a leader in solar power and energy efficient technology, the kind of technologies the president argues are key for America’s future competitiveness.

The president is calling for a new Sputnik moment, like the one in the 1950s when the Soviet Union beat the U.S. by sending a satellite into space — spurring the U.S. to pour money into science and technology programs and eventually make it to the moon.

The challenge resonated in Manitowoc, a small town on the shores of Lake Michigan that is known as the place a 20-pound (9-kilogram) chunk of the Sputnik satellite crashed in 1962, an event marked by an annual "Sputnikfest."

Obama insisted he hadn’t known of the Sputnik connection when he picked Manitowoc as the first audience for the themes of competitiveness and innovation that will push through his 2012 re-election campaign. But it gave him a fitting backdrop.

"It was part of a satellite called Sputnik that landed right here and that set the Space Race in motion," Obama said. "So I want to say to you today that it’s here, more than 50 years later, that the race for the 21st Century will be won."

The stop at Orion was the first of three factory visits Obama made in northern Wisconsin. He also touted his small business initiatives at Skana Aluminum Company, which took out a $5 billion Small Business Administration loan in December.

Still seeking to convince Americans that some of the unpopular economic decisions he made during the first two years of his administration were necessary, Obama also argued that those policies were responsible for the recovery that’s begun to take hold.

"New manufacturing plants, and new hopes, are taking root," Obama said.

Obama’s stop in Wisconsin, likely a key battleground state in 2012, underscored just how quickly the White House is refocusing on the president’s fast-approaching re-election campaign. Though Obama won Wisconsin in 2008, the state turned sharply to the right during the November midterm elections, when the entire legislature and governor’s office flipped from Democratic to Republican.