Obama's message to voters: Things could be worse

President Barack Obama, who rocketed to the White House promising "change you can believe in," is now telling voters they shouldn't change a thing.

His message for the fall elections, which are looking ominous for his Democrats, is that Republicans caused the nation's economic troubles, but he and the Democrats are starting to fix them. So stick with the Democrats and don't go back to the GOP.

"This is a choice between the policies that led us into the mess or the policies that are leading out of the mess," Obama said recently in Las Vegas.

Trouble is, it's a tough sell to voters who've seen little progress.

Unemployment is stuck near double digits and polls show many voters have decided Obama's policies are to blame, not his predecessor's.

Obama often frames the argument by saying that Republicans had their chance to drive, then drove the car into a ditch and shouldn't get the keys back. But voters may be concluding that Democrats, who control the White House and both chambers of Congress, have had their chance at the wheel, too, and haven't gotten very far.

"From the American public's point of view, the people in charge at this point are the people who own the problem," said Andrew Kohut, head of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

Obama's challenge for the next four months is to turn that perception around.

So he's traveled, from Buffalo, N.Y., to San Francisco, reminding voters of the mess he faced when he took office: a shrinking economy, lost jobs, weak markets, an economic crisis becoming international in scope.

Now, even though unemployment hasn't dropped to the 8 percent level the administration once projected, the economy is gradually picking up and adding jobs, the president says.

Putting Republicans in power, he contends, would reverse the momentum.

But the White House knows it can't just be about blaming George W. Bush, though the former president 's enduring unpopularity helps Obama's case. Obama must try to take it a step further and get voters to view Republicans now running for office as little more than extensions of Bush who would advance the ex-president's same policies.

"This isn't about relitigating history," said Obama senior adviser David Axelrod. "This is about history repeating itself."

Will the strategy work in an election year roiling with antiincumbent sentiment? That's not yet clear, though it hasn't appeared to boost Democrats' standing much so far. Midterm elections typically deal a drubbing to the president's party anyway, and for Democrats it could mean losing control of the House.

Republicans say they intend to keep the focus on Obama's policies, which they cast as deficit- busting, big-government boondoggles. "Democrats can attempt to spin it any way they want, but unfortunately for them this election is going to be a referendum on the president and his party's failed economic pol icies," said Rep. Pet e Sessions, R-Texas, chairman of the Nat ional Republ i can Congressional Committee.