Obama looks to take political momentum from Colorado Senate race on the road

President Obama will try to capitalize on a huge win for
the White House in Colorado by aggressively hitting the campaign trail this
week.

Obama will make stops in three states where Democratic
incumbent senators are in tight races. Democrats hold a 59-41 advantage in the
Senate, but Republicans are almost certain to pick up a handful of seats in the
upper chamber.

{mosads}Obama’s party faces a greater danger of losing the House,
but enough seats are in play to give Republicans an outside shot of taking
back the Senate, which would put the president in the same spot as Bill Clinton
in 1994.

Obama will travel on Monday to California, where Sen.
Barbara Boxer (D) is in the fight of her life against Republican
Carly Fiorina. The president is scheduled to speak in Los Angeles for a
fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

He’ll also stop over Monday in Wisconsin, where Democratic
Sen. Russ Feingold’s race is considered a toss-up. Obama will attend an event
for the state’s Democratic Party with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who’s running for governor.

On Tuesday, Obama will attend an event in Seattle for
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), another incumbent facing a difficult reelection
challenge. Republicans have yet to formally nominate a candidate, but Dino
Rossi is widely expected to face off against Murray.

All three races are considered toss-ups by The Cook
Political Report. Losses in any of the states would be devastating to
Democrats, who face even steeper challenges in North
Dakota, Delaware and Indiana, where the party is trying to hold on to open
seats.

Obama has largely stayed behind the scenes so far this
midterm year, raising buckets of money for candidates but doing few appearances.

But the White House appears eager to place Obama in the
role of campaigner in chief after Sen. Michael Bennet’s win in Colorado’s
Democratic primary on Tuesday night.

Bennet was appointed to succeed Ken Salazar, who gave
up the seat to become secretary of the Interior Department, and the White House
was quick to take credit for giving the incumbent senator a victory over
challenger Andrew Romanoff, who was supported by former President Clinton.

Obama’s senior political adviser, David Axelrod, in an
e-mail to The Hill, said Bennet’s win “reflected our ability to rally 2008 Obama
voters to participate in an off-year election — something that will be
meaningful this fall.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Friday
acknowledged Obama is doing “a hefty amount of political travel” in the coming
week.

“I think the president takes that role seriously,” Gibbs
said Friday. “And we obviously are getting closer and closer to some very
important elections where we’ll make some important choices about going
backwards or going forwards.”

After months of hand-wringing, Democrats are cautiously
optimistic that last Tuesday’s results reflect a midterm election that won’t
carry catastrophic losses for the majority party.

“I think if you look at that polling, you see a fairly
appreciable change in the enthusiasm gap over the course of several months,”
Gibbs said. “I think, quite honestly, the president has pointed out to the
American people and others what those choices are: Are we going to take
an economic philosophy that got us into this mess and go back to that, or an
economic philosophy that is getting out of it?

“And I think that’s what the next several months of
this election will be about, and I think we’ll do well in November.”