Democrats were angered when Mr. Obama said in an Oct. 2 speech in Illinois that his economic policies were on the ballot, and they were stunned last week when he said on Al Sharpton’s radio show that Democratic candidates who have done so much to distance themselves from him “are all folks who vote with me.”
Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, said he was puzzled over how a president who so appreciates the power of words could have been so careless.
“This is Politics 101: Always make it about the voters, not about yourself,” Mr. Begala said. “I don’t understand it. It was an unforced error at a time we can ill afford them.”
Even some of the president’s closest associates were troubled that the address he delivered at Northwestern University this month was a statistics-laden argument about how the economy had improved rather than a jeremiad against Republican policies that could frame the election.
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