WASHINGTON - — WASHINGTON - -When Barack Obama steps inside a University of Maryland arena today, he will be making his latest appeal in what is quickly becoming the most extensive presidential selling job in years.
Since his nationally televised speech on health care to Congress last week, Obama has rallied supporters at election-style events in Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania. On Sunday, he will hit no fewer than five TV talk programs and, for good measure, will appear on David Letterman's late-night show on Monday.
According to national opinion polls, Obama's most recent campaign has made, at most, a modest impact on a deeply divided American public. But building popular support is only one element of the strategy behind his high-visibility tour and perhaps not the most important one.
The president's effort is also designed to provide badly needed cover for Democrats in Congress, who, it seems increasingly clear, won't be able to count on Republican help in approving a plan. On Wednesday, the latest Senate health care legislation, unveiled after weeks of bipartisan negotiations, failed to gain the support of any Republicans involved in shaping it.
Democratic lawmakers want to see the president "out there providing them with a political message in support of what they're doing," said Steve Elmendorf, a former top House Democratic leadership aide. "He is popular and most members like him, and I think that that will work."
But "it's not easy," cautioned Elmendorf, now a Washington lobbyist. "There's a reason that health reform hasn't happened," in spite of attempts by previous presidents.
Other Democratic strategists say that stiffening the spines of wavering Democrats and persuading vulnerable members of Congress to take a risk in supporting the plan are not the only goals of the president's public relations push.
Another is to sustain the case Obama laid out to Congress, over the din of the national debate, in a way that only a president can.
"The largest impediment to passage of health reform has been confusion about what it is," said Dan Pfieffer, the president's deputy communications director. "We actually feel very good that the speech gave, both in the Congress and in the country, a boost in momentum" for Obama's version of change.
