Tired Obama kept offstage in campaign

President Obama's presence in US mid- term elections is low-key. Photo / AP

Polarising President sent to towns where he can do less damage to Democrat senators.

Despite clocking up more than 1000 flights in his time as President, Barack Obama still lopes up Air Force One's steps with his trademark bounce, exchanging banter with journalists and the public with the casual charm that helped get him elected.

A rare chance to spend 24 hours inside the presidential bubble as he criss-crossed New England on the campaign trail also reveals a politician at times a shadow of the messianic figure that electrified US voters in 2008. Just days before midterm elections that could cost his party control of the Senate, the commander-in-chief has been exiled to places where his plummeting approval ratings can do no harm.

Rather than risk damaging moderate Democrats in key swing states on Wednesday, he's in less high-profile places, such as Portland, Maine, and Providence, Rhode Island.

Aides deny rumours he's frustrated at campaigning almost exclusively for state governors rather than the US senators whose fate will determine the course of his last two years in Washington. Obama's own behaviour on the two-day trip makes it hard to avoid the suspicion his heart isn't entirely in it any more. On one leg the President strolls to the back of the plane to chat with reporters, not about the election but to ask if press secretary Josh Earnest can skip the daily briefing as it's Halloween and he deserves a rest. He then hands out chocolate cake and a chat.

To his admirers, such incidents confirm the relaxed, "no drama" Obama who perhaps realises the futility of another soundbite at this late stage in an ailing campaign, but for many disillusioned Democrats they also suggest a politician less than willing to go the extra mile any more.

On stage, there is a similar weariness, even in the stump speech.

In Providence, the presidential motorcade drops in at a well-known diner, so Obama can personally buy lunch and some of the cake that later gets used to bribe the press pool.

His staff like to refer to such moments as the "bear going on the loose", revelling in the photo opportunities that surprise encounters with the public can throw up, but these choreographed episodes are highly stylised, rarely straying outside a few brief pleasantries with customers.

Less visible are the fundraising opportunities, such a major feature of Obama's 2014 campaign schedule. On this trip, he hosts a reception at the woodland home of Bob Monks, the wealthy son of a former Republican Senate candidate of the same name.

Tickets for the 25 invited donors start at US$16,200 ($20,790), but the press is kept at bay in a neighbour's house while Secret Service guards prowl the large Cape Elizabeth estate.

These secretive fundraisers, typically held in stunning residential properties, have become a mainstay of the President's campaign efforts this year - his way of offering something to help the vulnerable Senate candidates who can't afford to be seen alongside him at rallies but are in desperate need of cash for television advertising.

Yet hints of the old Obama remain. "Hope is a better choice," Obama tells the audience in Maine. "Hope is what gives those soldiers in World War II the courage to storm a beach. Hope is what allows young people to march on behalf of women's rights, and workers' rights, and civil rights ..."

There are grounds for hope. Last year's bugbears - Obamacare, the lacklustre economy - are increasingly tamed. This year's challenges - Ebola, Isis (Islamic State) - may ultimately show the President's soundness of judgment. There is a chance the Democrats may not lose as heavily as the polls suggest.

- Observer