Obamas move to drum up base’s enthusiasm

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama over the next week will continue efforts to boost enthusiasm among key voting blocs that helped propel the former senator into the White House in 2008.

The president will appear in a televised youth town-hall event next Thursday that will air on the MTV, MTVu, BET, Centric, TR3s and CMT cable networks. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs blasted out news of the
appearance on his Twitter account Tuesday morning.

{mosads}MTV, which is co-producing the event, said 250 young people will attend who represent a “broad cross-section of backgrounds, interests and political viewpoints.” Obama will answer questions from the studio audience and viewers who submit questions on Twitter.

Meanwhile on Tuesday the first lady sent out an e-mail to Organizing for America (OFA) supporters, the same grassroots group that helped her husband gather a large number of activists during his presidential campaign. She will also participate on a conference call with OFA supporters on Wednesday.

“Two years ago, in state after state — no matter where I went — I saw grandmothers out canvassing, college kids traveling to swing states and sleeping on gymnasium floors, and people using their lunch breaks to make a few more calls,” she wrote Tuesday. “Now, with the stakes so high in this fall’s elections, we’re asking you
to help grow this movement again.”

With only a month left in the 2010 midterm campaign, Obama has switched gears to focus on bolstering the flagging voter enthusiasm on the Democrats side. 

A Gallup poll released last week showed that 48 percent of Republican registered voters say they are enthusiastic about voting compared to only 28 percent of Democrats who say the same.

Republicans are expected to make large gains on the Democratic majorities in Congress on Nov. 2 but Democrats have attempted a wide-array of approaches to help stave off sizable losses, such as attacking House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) as a symbol of GOP policies they say would hinder economic recovery.

The White House held a conference call this weekend on the heels of two large Obama rallies last week aimed at young Democrats, claiming that Democrats are making up ground in voter enthusiasm.

During his presidential run, Obama appeared on a similar MTV forum in Oct. 2007, where he fielded questions from young voters in Iowa.