WASHINGTON - -Before he returns to the capital to reset his presidency, Barack Obama is savoring his longest stay yet at Camp David.
The Maryland mountain retreat has quickly become for him what it was for his predecessors - a secluded place to lick his wounds and decompress. This latest, extended visit can be seen as another sign of the normalization of the Obama administration, which, like his poll numbers, has fallen back to Earth.
Obama came to power less than eight months ago in a blaze of adulation and excitement, a figure of historic importance. Today, he's much more like other presidents. His job approval rating is slightly lower than Ronald Reagan's, roughly even with George W. Bush's and substantially higher than Bill Clinton's at the same point in the first year of their presidencies.
"I think we can overstate how big his problems are," said Andrew Kohut, director of the independent Pew Research poll. "There were such high expectations for him. That's part of this. But it would be unrealistic to think that he would go sailing right through with his high rating, given all the problems the country faces."
Economists say the worst recession since the Depression is about to end, if it hasn't already. Many credit government action, including the $787 billion economic stimulus package that Obama pushed through Congress last winter, for speeding a recovery.
But unemployment has continued to soar, to the highest level in a generation, and millions of Americans are worried that their job could be among the next to go. That unease, analysts say, helped fuel the president's summerlong slide in popularity.
Another drag on Obama's standing is the increasingly divisive debate over his top domestic initiative: an overhaul of the U.S. health care system. This week, Obama will address a joint session of Congress and a national television audience in an effort to reclaim momentum and control the dialogue over how to control costs and cover the uninsured.
The president also faces daunting challenges overseas, including the spread of violence in Afghanistan. He will confront a difficult decision this fall about sending 15,000 to 30,000 more U.S. combat troops into the war zone, where American casualties have been on the rise.
Public opinion has turned against the war, fed by growing opposition from Obama's liberal supporters. The president recently called Afghanistan "a war of necessity," but he is likely to face pressure in the coming months to either demonstrate progress or begin laying out an exit strategy.
