Records show that in every one of his 13 trips to Northern California since taking office, Obama has never missed an opportunity for fundraising in the reliable Mother Lode for Democratic causes.

His rare non-fundraising forays here have all been invitation-only – a May 2010 visit to the now-defunct Solyndra plant, and two 2011 private town halls at the Palo Alto headquarters of Facebook and Mountain View-based LinkedIn.

Obama hasn’t starred at a free event open to the public in the Bay Area since before the 2008 election, when – as a candidate – he held rallies and addressed thousands of voters in Oakland and Marin County.

Even first lady Michelle Obama’s last public events in the region were in 2009, when she made a visit to Bret Harte Elementary School in San Francisco and spoke to graduates at UC Merced.

Democratic pollster Ben Tulchin said Obama’s current troubles in Washington – the Benghazi attack, the IRS scandal and the outcry over secret gathering of Associated Press reporters’ phone records – suggest the White House needs to adopt a war room strategy that takes advantage of every opportunity to tell his story to voters instead of “just chugging along.”