The Maine Event

President Obama goes to Maine today to sell Obamacare, and he has his work cut out for him.

During a speech Thursday in Portland, Maine — the second stop in a series of appearances to sell the reforms — Obama was to focus on the plan's short- and long-term impacts on small businesses, many of which have suffered during the economic downturn.

Under the plan, businesses with 25 or fewer employees with average annual wages of less than $50,000 will receive tax credits this year if they provide health care coverage to their workers. Those credits are expected to increase by 2014, with 4 million small businesses benefiting, according to the White House.

Businesses that may be eligible for the tax credits with receive letters from the government in the coming weeks, another step in the administration's efforts to tout the benefits of the overhaul.

Also starting in 2014, companies with up to 100 employees will be able to buy insurance through new state-based purchasing pools, or exchanges, with the goal of giving small businesses the same kind of purchasing power as employees at larger companies. Twenty-two million self-employed Americans will also be able to purchase insurance through the exchanges.

That's the kind of thing independent-minded Mainers want to hear.  The problem is Obama has a really, really tough sell if this Gallup poll is accurate.

Registered voters now say they prefer the Republican to the Democratic candidate in their district by 47% to 44% in the midterm congressional elections, the first time the GOP has led in 2010 election preferences since Gallup began weekly tracking of these in March.

The March 22-28 results were obtained after the U.S. House's passage of landmark healthcare reform legislation on March 21. The shift toward Republicans raises the possibility that the healthcare bill had a slightly negative impact on the Democrats' political fortunes in the short run.

A separate USA Today/Gallup poll conducted March 26-28 showed a similar result, with Republicans ahead by 46% to 45%.

These results suggest the Republicans would have a strong showing if the midterm elections were held today. Since Republicans usually vote at higher rates than Democrats, the Republicans' edge in voter preferences would likely exceed what the registered voter results indicate.

A Republican advantage among all registered voters in midterm elections has been rare in Gallup's 60-year history of tracking congressional voting preferences, happening only a few times each in the 1950, 1994, and 2002 election cycles -- all years in which Republicans had strong Election Day showings.

That's putting it mildly.  All three of those years were disasters for the Dems.  And 44% in the generic ballot is a bad, bad place for the Dems to be...it's worse than in 1994.  Obama needs to accomplish a lot more and fast, and he needs to waste less time placating Republicans who will never vote for his policies and more time delivering benefits to his base to close that "enthusiasm gap."

Starting out with "more offshore drilling" for example is not the way to go.