IS THE WHITE HOUSE GETTING THE MESSAGE? – AT 11:01 A.M. ET:  A year ago, the public couldn't get enough of Hollywood-on-the-Potomac star Barack Obama.  Now, well, maybe the word "overexposure" is the word.  Or maybe "incompetent" is more to the point.  From The Politico:

Moderate House Democrats facing potentially difficult re-elections this fall have a message for President Barack Obama: don’t call us, we’ll call you.

Interviews with nearly a dozen congressional Democrats on the ballot this year reveal a decided lack of enthusiasm for having Obama come to their districts to campaign for them—the most basic gauge of a president’s popularity.

Some cite the president’s surely busy schedule. Others point to a practice of not bringing in national politicians to appear on their behalf. While these members aren’t necessarily attempting to distance themselves from the administration, there is nevertheless a noticeable reluctance to embrace him by a certain class of incumbent now that the president’s approval rating has fallen to a new low in the latest Gallup survey, 46 percent.

Politico notes that George W. Bush suffered a similar fate, but also notes the difference:

The difference, however, is that Bush was narrowly elected twice in a country divided between red and blue states, while Obama shredded that map. With his success in the interior West and upper South, Obama was thought to be such a political asset that he could play most anywhere in the country.

No longer.  When you're presented as a new deity, and you don't perform godlike acts, people get bored.

I don't recall a president slumping this quickly, and this decisively.  We caution, of course, that Obama might be able to reverse his decline.  And Republicans can stumble badly.  But right now the incumbent looks like the Edsel of presidents – introduced with a roar, and increasingly ridiculed.

March 14, 2010