"I'm glad he's really fully engaged," the Prince George's County Democrat said, applauding the president's use of less-traditional platforms, such as CBS' "Late Night," to reach Americans who did not watch his speech to Congress.
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington called Obama's public relations effort a plus for revamping health care. "It certainly has an impact on people's understanding of the issue and why we need to act on it," she said.
Maine Sen. Susan M. Collins, one of the few Republicans that Democrats still hope to win over, said it "is always helpful for the president to make his case and answer questions on the bill. Both sides in this debate are highly energized, so I think it's going to be a vigorous debate until the last vote is counted."
But Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who chairs the Republican Senate campaign committee, was dismissive of Obama's efforts. There is "a credibility issue" between Obama's rhetoric and what the public is seeing in the proposals now before Congress, he said.
"The biggest problem ... the president has is he's still in campaign mode," Cornyn said. "It's time to get in governing mode, and that takes hard work. That's more than doing five interviews on Sunday."
Reminded that the last Republican president made a similar campaign-style effort, Cornyn merely shrugged.
"Yeah, didn't work very well," he said.
The most recent public polling shows that Obama has strengthened his base and stabilized his job approval rating. But the public remains deeply split over his health care package and his handling of the issue.
A new Gallup poll, released Wednesday, showed that 50 percent of Americans surveyed want Congress to approve health care legislation, while 47 percent are opposed. In a possible opening for Obama, the survey also found that 14 percent of those opposed to a health care bill cited a lack of information about the proposal as the main reason for their negative view.
Elmendorf, the Democratic strategist, said public attitudes toward health care today are much less important than the issue's impact in 2010, when Democrats will be defending majorities in both houses of Congress.
"What's going to matter is what the reaction is to an actual bill getting passed and to what it does," he said. "Next year, when you get to the election, that's what matters."
