Obama back on campaign trail as economy drags down ratings (Feature)

By Chris Cermak Aug 17, 2010, 16:51 GMT

Washington - Despite suffering some of the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, Barack Obama was crisscrossing the United States this week in the hopes of raising money and the flagging political fortunes of his fellow Democrats.

Obama headed to Wisconsin, Los Angeles, Washington state, Ohio and Florida for three days of events for senators, congressmen and state governors who will face voters in November mid-term elections.

The first campaign-style tour of this election year comes as Obama's own left-leaning party debates the merits of appearing with a president whose approval ratings have dipped close to 40 per cent in some polls, down from more than 60 per cent at the start of his presidency in January 2009.

Some Democrats, including a Texas candidate for governor, have declined to share the stage with Obama. Others have taken pride in standing up to Obama in political advertisements, a far cry from the euphoria of his 2008 election campaign.

Tim Kaine, head of the party's national committee, called this a 'crazy' strategy that will only cost Democratic lawmakers by blunting enthusiasm and alienating the party's base.

Conservatives, by contrast, are brimming with enthusiasm and hoping to make major inroads into the Democrats' majorities in Congress. Pollsters predict the Republican Party could retake the House of Representatives in November and come close in the Senate.

Preventing that Republican takeover will be 'my focus over the next several months,' Obama said at a fundraising event in California Monday night, arguing he had entered office prepared for tough times.

'This is exactly when you want to be president. This is why I ran, because we have the opportunity to shape history for the better.'

Obama's decline has come despite some major domestic successes this year, with Congress approving sweeping overhauls of health care and financial sectors.

Yet his numbers have declined steadily as frustration grows with the US' sputtering economic recovery, a weak jobs market and a skyrocketing budget deficit of more than 10 per cent. About 50 per cent of voters rated the economy and jobs as their top concern in a recent Gallup poll, far above any other single issue.

This picture is unlikely to change by November. The Federal Reserve last week said the recovery would be weaker than anticipated, while unemployment was steady at 9.5 per cent in July - down just 0.7 percentage points from the height of the US recession last year.

The weak recovery has soured the mood against more than just Obama. Incumbent politicians across the country - from both political parties - are facing a poisonous re-election climate.

The conservative Tea Party, a grass-roots political movement calling for smaller government, is slowly beginning to convert voter anger over Obama's big spending plans into real political clout.

Ken Buck, a Tea Party-backed candidate, won a Republican primary in Colorado against an opponent backed by the conservative party's establishment. The revolt is also threatening long-time Republicans like Arizona Senator John McCain and Florida Governor Charlie Christ.

There is some consolation for Obama: Losing mid-term elections is hardly new. US voters have long been wary of handing the same political party the reins of both Congress and the presidency.

Obama would be suffering a similar fate as Democratic president Bill Clinton in 1994 and Republican Ronald Reagan in 1982. Reagan's approval rating had also plummeted 16 percentage points - the same as Obama - during the first 18 months of his presidency.

Frank Newport, head of the polling agency Gallup, noted that Obama's slide in the first year and a half of his presidency was comparable to that of many previous presidents.

Obama's fall from grace since the start of his presidency is 'on the high end of what we have seen from recent presidents, but certainly is not unprecedented,' Newport wrote this week.