You can catch me this Sunday morning as a guest on WMUR-TV’s Close Up (Ch. 9, 10 a.m.). We will be discussing the political implications of the latest WMUR/Granite State Poll numbers, which show a drop in President Obama’s job approval rating in New Hampshire.

No sooner did I float the argument that New Hampshire’s Congressional Democrats will benefit from the fact that President Obama’s job approval remains a bit higher here than elsewhere, than the UNH Survey Center comes out with new polling data today showing that the president’s job approval has dropped in the Granite State. Obama’s job approval has hovered in the upper 40s nationally in recent weeks, but my sense has been that he was more likely in the low 50s (51 to 53%ish) in the Granite State. Not a big difference, but as anyone who follows elections closely knows, those few points can translate into a bigger impact in terms of relative electoral strength.

 

The new UNH poll has Obama’s job approval rating dropping from 55% in October to a new low of 48%. The president took a particularly large hit among independents, where his approval rating is now down to 39%, a circumstance that mirrors a similar drop among independents elsewhere, in places like Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. It is true that this is just one poll, so it will be helpful when other organizations weigh in with new data, as well. But the question may now be whether this represents the bottom of a trough for Obama (before a rebound), or is there further for him to drop? The answer to this question will have electoral repercussions for Democratic candidates in the state.

The fact that President Obama found himself in a position at the Nashua town hall meeting yesterday where he felt compelled to apologize for the lack of transparency surrounding some of the health care negotiations leaves me scratching my head. I was under the impression that Obama and his political advisors had carefully studied the legislative lessons of the Clinton Administration’s health care debacle in 1993. Obama certainly campaigned on the issues of transparency and interest group influence as though he had.

 

Given the way the legislative process typically functions (often referred to as sausage-making), however, one could argue that Obama’s campaign promise was somewhat unrealistic from the outset. But he couched it in a broader argument about the need for transformational change, so there was an expectation that the mistakes of the Clinton health care experience would not be repeated.

 

It is interesting that both Clinton and Obama hit the proverbial political buzz saw with health care, in particular. If you take a look at the Clinton Administration’s experience with the North American Free Trade Agreement (also in 1993), you’ll find that President Clinton cut deals with a host of individual legislators, left and right, in order to get the treaty. But something about the combination of health care and secrecy has proven to be combustible for both presidents. Once those C-SPAN cameras are finally rolling, I’ll be excited to see what the décor looks like inside that backroom.

Over the past few days, I have been asked frequently about why President Obama chose to kick off the publicity for his new budget proposals by holding a town hall meeting in Nashua. He was just here in Portsmouth over the summer in support of health care reform, and New Hampshire has faired a bit better economically than some other parts of the country, which could no doubt use the presidential attention.

 

In response, I’ve been able to come up with a variety of possible explanations, although I have no special insight into which one is the prime motivator behind Obama’s visit. We have a well-known and well-regarded tradition of retail politics and grassroots activism in New Hampshire, which offers a good political environment for a president trying to recapture a little campaign mojo going into an important election year. Our state’s focus on small businesses and entrepreneurship provides a suitable context for launching the new job creation incentives contained in the budget.

 

The president also seems to have a close relationship with Congressman and U.S. Senate hopeful Paul Hodes (note the State of the Union hug), and would no doubt love to see Republican Senator Judd Gregg’s seat flip to the Democrats. By speaking here, Obama can also take a do-over of sorts, only a short distance from the scene of his bearing witness to the Martha Coakley debacle in Massachusetts last month. Finally, we’re a short plane ride away from the White House, and, if nothing else, Obama is still a bit more popular here than in some other parts of the country.

 

So, it’s your choice. There are lots of reasons for why Obama might return to New Hampshire for town hall meetings again and again. But what actually interests me more is the question of whether it will make any difference. There was a time in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when political scientists were captivated with the idea of presidents going public – that is using technological advances in communications and transportation to take their agenda directly to the people, as a means of exerting greater leverage on an increasingly gridlocked legislative process.

 

Bill Clinton certainly used the technique to great effect, and George W. Bush made the town hall meeting a key part of his agenda-selling strategy. But President Obama has taken the technique to new heights, with almost daily public speeches and events designed to highlight his policy proposals. The question to ponder therefore is whether a presidential visit can ever lose its potential for impact. We will have new polling data soon enough to help with an answer, and the eyes of many political observers will continue to be trained on Republicans in Congress, in order to see whether any of this makes them budge.

For a long time now, Republican First Congressional District candidate Bob Bestani has complained about Frank Guinta using his status as the early-anointed frontrunner to essentially ignore Bestani as a primary opponent. Perhaps that will now change with news of Guinta’s anemic (for a frontrunner) fourth quarter fundraising total of just under $61,000, which is barely $10,000 more than Bestani’s take for the same period.

 

There are typically three ways that you can build a viable primary campaign. You can cultivate and harness grassroots fervor for your candidacy, receive the electoral imprimatur of your party’s institutional elites in Washington, or self-fund using your own personal resources. Thus far in this election cycle, Guinta has relied primarily on the second option, but that may be in jeopardy. The former Manchester mayor can’t keep receiving bad press in D.C., and expect to be viewed favorably by Republican elites there for much longer. My guess is that Guinta has one more chance (at best) to step up his game in the first quarter of 2010, before finding himself facing additional primary opponents. And, maybe Bob Bestani will finally get a chance to have his say, as well.

You may have come across a reference to this item in the Washington Post today, in which the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Judd Gregg is ranked high on a list of seats likely to change party at the midterms. The item focuses primarily on former New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte’s fundraising numbers for the fourth quarter, and suggests that she is turning out to be somewhat less competitive as a candidate than Republicans had initially hoped.

 

Although the item implies that Ayotte’s fundraising numbers are a bit lackluster, she is still far outpacing her primary opponents, in terms of an ability to bring in money from donors (we’re waiting for Ovide Lamontagne’s numbers). It is also true that Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes is over $1 million ahead of Ayotte for the fundraising year, but he had a nice head start, and the two were reasonably close with their third and fourth quarter totals.

 

The bigger issue for Ayotte is that two of her primary opponents, businessmen Bill Binnie and Jim Bender, were willing to kick in a combined $1.7 million of their own money to fund their campaigns, and that probably won’t be the last of it. While both are running early ads to build name recognition, they could create a whole lot of mischief with that kind of money, especially with attack ads against Ayotte, should they decide to run them. That kind of intra-party battle could derail her candidacy, or instead make her a tougher candidate for the general election. It’s really too soon to tell, but this race now seems headed for an interesting spring and summer.

In its modern televised incarnation, the State of the Union address is typically designed to reassure Americans that the president has the situation at hand under control. With recent polling showing that a large majority of citizens believe the policymaking process in Washington is fundamentally broken, last night’ edition of this annual ritual took on the added imperative of demonstrating that our system of government is still capable of operating in the ways we expect it to function.

 

So, that was the frame of mind with which I approached President Obama’s first State of the Union address last night. As the president often does, he gave a good speech. Obama was able to rally Democrats, extend an offer of bipartisanship to Republicans while simultaneously putting them on notice, and throw in some populism for the many citizens who feel caught in-between, both economically and politically.

 

But I have to say that I came away from the experience with a surprising sense of gloom, and after listening to a wide range of reaction to the speech over the past 12 hours that feeling has only intensified. I think what hit me was the realization that for all of the appropriate notes struck by Obama in his speech last night, nothing much is likely to change in practice. It is pretty clear that Republicans believe they have already found a winning strategy for the 2010 midterm elections, and if the president’s agenda items are truly as unpopular as they claim, then perhaps they are correct and will be rewarded at the polls. But with a little more than nine months to go before Election Day, I don’t expect their approach to change much.

 

This leaves Obama and the Democrats to basically go it alone, as whatever bipartisan rapprochement emerges from the speech will be short-lived. The president still needs some sort of legislative victory on health care, and we can now also throw in bank regulation and a jobs bill to boot. If he can’t get at least some of these through the legislative process, given his majorities in Congress, then he will have to hope that voters are really angry at Republicans, rather than disappointed with him.

I have been watching the Carol Shea-Porter gender brouhaha play out over the past few days, as her Republican opponents have attempted to gain some political traction off of her comments. You may have already heard Shea-Porter’s suggestion that women in Congress would be much more likely to reach a bipartisan consensus on health care without Congressmen around to complicate the negotiations. I’ve now seen the episode pop up on the national cable news shows and heard it decried on conservative talk radio. My favorite moment was when Frank Guinta implied to WMUR-TV (clip here on right) that the remarks were somehow of sufficient magnitude to prevent Shea-Porter from legislating.

 

Those of you who follow my analysis regularly know that I have been tough on Shea-Porter on a number of occasions, and I’ve been quick to point out silliness from the New Hampshire Democratic Party when it arises. But the Republican outrage over her comments is equally ridiculous. I’ve watched the original clip several times, and it’s clearly just a clichéd throwaway line about the differences in temperament between men and women. That being said, I actually know a number of women, Republican and Democratic, who would probably agree with the sentiment, if that is any consolation to Shea-Porter. So, here’s hoping that tonight’s State of the Union Address by President Obama gets us back to focusing on more serious matters.

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