President Barack Obama says he's confident that if re-elected he will secure within six months...

(Reuters) — President Barack Obama says he's confident that if re-elected he will secure within six months a deficit-reduction deal with Republicans equivalent to the "grand bargain" he failed to achieve last year. U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally in Davenport, Iowa October 24, 2012. Obama is on a two-day, seven state, campaign swing. REUTERS/Kevin Win or lose the November 6 election against Republican Mitt Romney, Obama faces a so-called "fiscal cliff" of automatic across-the-board spending cuts and tax increases set for the end of the year, before the swearing-in of a new Congress and the victor in the presidential race. "It will probably be messy. It won't be pleasant," he said of the negotiations ahead. "But I am absolutely confident that we can get what is the equivalent of the grand bargain that essentially I've been offering to the Republicans for a very long time, which is $2.50 worth of cuts for every dollar in spending, and work to reduce the costs of our health care programs," Obama said. He also said a broader long-term deal could "credibly meet" the target of $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years as proposed in December 2010 by a deficit reduction commission headed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. "We're going to be in a position where I believe in the first six months we are going to solve that big piece of business," Obama said. The newspaper, the largest in the election battleground state of Iowa, is preparing to endorse a candidate in the presidential race. Obama sought to counter criticism that he had failed to offer a clear picture of his second-term agenda. Despite that, his comments did not offer specifics on how the "fiscal cliff" could be avoided, especially given the climate of legislative gridlock and partisan rancor in Washington. But Obama's time-frame for achieving a grand bargain conforms with the prevalent view on Capitol Hill that Congress and the White House will attempt some temporary fix on taxes and spending in order to work on something larger in the months after a newly elected Congress convenes. Obama also said that in a second term, "We can start looking at a serious corporate tax reform agenda," something he said was of common interest to both Democrats and Republicans.