Elections to test Obama's public image

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By Stephen Dinan

If elections are the ultimate beauty contest, President Obama next week will have his first major turn on the catwalk since his inauguration.

Having campaigned with the Democrats running for governor in Virginia and New Jersey and for the Democrat running in a special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District, Mr. Obama has put his prestige and momentum on the line.

Republicans say Mr. Obama has the most riding on Virginia, where they can break the Democrats' winning streak and throw a kink in the red-to-blue realignment Mr. Obama said he ushered in. Democrats say the president has little to lose but could pull off a coup if he can boost turnout enough to help in the tight New Jersey race.

The White House is keeping mum about what's at stake for Mr. Obama.

"Ask me the day after," spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

In Virginia, where Republican gubernatorial candidate Robert F. McDonnell has run ahead of Democrat Creigh Deeds in the polls for almost the entire campaign, Republicans say they have a chance to show talk of a South-Mountain West realignment is premature.

"They were saying that Virginia, with Jim Webb's [2006 Senate] victory, with [Gov.] Tim Kaine's victory in '05, then Obama carrying Virginia, [Mark] Warner just demolishing Jim Gilmore, that was an indication the South and border states like Virginia were now moving to the left," said David Johnson, president of Strategic Vision LLC, a Republican polling firm. "Virginia really is the test case for the Democratic Party — have they made these inroads, has the country really moved to the left?"

Mr. Obama carried Virginia with 53 percent of the vote in 2008, won New Jersey with 57 percent and carried New York's 23rd Congressional District with 52 percent.

Mr. Johnson said that Virginia showing could be Mr. Obama's "Gettysburg" — the high point that marks the furthest inroads he's able to make into formerly Republican territory before suffering a push-back that could begin next week.

"If they can carry Virginia, if they can hold on to Virginia, then they still have momentum. If not it's a big embarrassment," he said.