Sunday, October 17, 2010

Obama targets key groups in election's homestretch

Obama is also using backyard meetings and televised town halls, including one broadcast on MTV, BET and CMT last week.sk America: Learn. Listen. Be hea

White House officials insist the president's coast-to-coast campaigning is making a difference.

"There's an excitement about what this president is trying to do. There's an energy around it," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

But polls suggest Obama's winning coalition from 2008 is crumbling. About one-quarter of those who voted for Obama are voting Republican in November or are considering doing so, according to an Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll.

Equally as dispiriting for the White House: Just half of Obama voters say they'll definitely show up to vote Nov. 2, while two-thirds of those who voted for Republican John McCain in the 2008 presidential election say they're certain to vote.

Democratic officials say the president is still the best messenger to encourage his party to get to the polls. Following three straight days of events in Delaware, Massachusetts and Ohio, Obama heads West for stops in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday, Seattle and San Francisco on Thursday, Los Angeles and Las Vegas on Friday and Minneapolis on Saturday.

Obama probably will spend Election Day in the nation's capital, and has requested an absentee ballot to vote in his home state of Illinois.

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