Obama: Alone on the bus (Politico)

The moment that best defined Barack Obama?s three-day bus tour of North Carolina and Virginia came on the last day, as the president stood indecisively between Anna?s pizzeria in Hampton, Va., and an unwelcoming wall of security vehicles.

Obama and the first lady had just had lunch with four veterans, quietly discussing their struggle to find jobs after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was about to hop aboard the armored motor coach when he spied dozens of cheering supporters beckoning him to come, about a block to his right, on the main road leading to the local air force base.

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He paused, seeming to ponder the logistics of sprinting over. He waved, smiled, waved again. Then ? as the thought-bubble, ?Nah!? seemed to pop into the presidential cranium ? Obama disappeared up the steps of his bus, leaving behind disappointed fans and a missed opportunity on a trip full of them.

Obama scored historic victories in 2008 in both Virginia and North Carolina. To win next year, he needs to maximize support among his base, while keeping GOP tallies down in white, rural and suburban areas he didn?t win last time.

That means figuring out a way to reach voters who aren?t generally inclined to like Democrats and who have absorbed three years of GOP messaging about Obama?s love for big government and high taxes. But the challenge isn?t merely external. If this week?s trip proved anything, it?s that Obama?s personal disdain for politicking, which marked him as a reformer last time, now adds an extra impediment to an already daunting political sales job next year.

?The data says people like Obama personally, but they don?t like a lot of his policies or his performance,? says Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown. ?This trip is supposed to be a bridge between those data points. ? Whether he can do that remains to be seen.?

This week?s trip to two critical upper-South swing states had a superficially narrow mission: to batter Republicans into backing Obama?s jobs bill, particularly a provision to provide localities with $35 billion aimed at stemming massive teacher, firefighter and police layoffs. The plan, which the Senate blocked Thursday night, polls well ? better than the president himself in both states.

But the trek, like the far sunnier jaunt through rural Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois in late summer, had a broader purpose: to reconnect with a public increasingly souring on his economic stewardship.

Obama, a fan of Apple products, has an inside-the-Beltway reputation for being a human iPad ? sleek, unemotional, efficient and self-contained. But that?s an illusion that vanishes when he leaves Washington. Like any performer ? and Obama is his generation?s preeminent political performer ? the president is deeply sensitive, even hyper-sensitive, to the emotional temperature of those around him. He can?t quite hide his disappointment when people give the cold shoulder.

Before an enthusiastic audience of black teachers and students in a rural North Carolina High School Tuesday night, he seemed to relax, radiating warmth, confidence, authority and humor.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories1011_66607_html/43349401/SIG=11ma76r85/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66607.html

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