Things have got to be bad for Democrats right now as they desperately try to whip up the vote to save the job of California's Gov. Gavin Newsom in the Sept. 14 recall election.

They called in Joe Biden, president of the United States, who is set to make an appearance for their man this week.  They called in Kamala Harris, vice president of the United States, longtime Newsom pal, and former California senator, who showed up for appearances Wednesday.

Normally, when you've got the president of the United States campaigning for you, it's a wrap.  The big guy makes an appearance, and the voters come running.  Big Guys don't often do this, and that makes this all the more special.

But something doesn't seem to be happening, so now they've pulled out their real ace in the hole, Barack Obama, man of pizzazz and charisma, former popular president, since turned Hollywood figure, to try to turn this situation around for embattled Newsom with his familiar pious soaring rhetoric about sweep-of-history, a choice of moving forward or backward.

According to Fox News:

Former President Barack Obama waded into the political arena Wednesday touting the work of the Biden administration and issuing support for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall effort. 

"California! You've got a big choice to make by September 14, and everything is on the line," the former president tweeted about the Republican effort to remove Newsom from office in an election next week. "Your vote could be the difference between protecting our kids or putting them at risk; helping Californians recover or taking us backwards. Vote "no" on the Republican recall."

Obama cutting an ad for Newsom on COVID safety is peak hypocrisy. Does he really think we forgot about his recent birthday party? pic.twitter.com/8Qlgv0B0KZ

— Patrick Witt (@patrickjwitt) September 9, 2021

Notice that Obama employs the familiar storytelling device of "the children are in danger," something to elicit hysteria.  Anyone who's ever taken a novel-writing or screenwriting class knows that that's the biggest scream factor designed to elicit a reaction.

The fact that Obama has replaced sitting president Joe Biden as the Democrats' trump factor tells us a lot about how bad things are going.

Biden is a failure, of course, most recently and spectacularly based on his Afghanistan performance, and his polls are down to about 39% approval.  They invited him anyway, figuring that California was a blue state and that shouldn't matter.

But now the news is out that Biden is dragging down another Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe in Virginia.  According to the Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard:

In a new survey of the gubernatorial election in the state that has voted for Democrats in the past four elections, McAuliffe has gone from leading Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin to being tied at 48%.

And when the third-party candidate is added in, Youngkin tops McAuliffe, 48% to 46%.

"Head-to-head support for Glenn Younkin has grown by three points while McAuliffe's support has dropped by the same amount. The ballot has shifted by six-points since early August. The race is tied race heading into the home stretch," according to the polling memo shared with Secrets.

Biden's abysmal approval ratings are behind it:

The survey is a wake-up call to Democrats hoping to run on Biden's coattails in 2022.

"Opinions regarding Joe Biden have collapsed in Virginia," according to the survey analysis shown below.

How bad is it for Biden? In one month, his favorable-unfavorable rating has gone from 53% favorable and 43% unfavorable to 50% unfavorable and 43% favorable.

And along the way, Republicans have become far more interested in the election and voting than Democrats. According to the analysis, "Eighty-one percent of Republicans report very high (10 out of 10) levels of interest in the election compared to fewer than six-in-ten Democrats (58%)."

So Obama is supposed to save the day since Democrats all know that Biden is dragging the party down?

How's Obama's reputation these days?  He recently held a big maskless birthday party extravaganza event on Martha's Vineyard that ended up apparently turning into a COVID super-spreader event.  That's pretty well in the same league as the public sentiment on Gavin Newsom, whose French Laundry restaurant party at a time when the rest of the state was locked down brought him his first wave of public opprobrium.

How's the Obama record on endorsements, though?  Here are some random headlines from previous years:

Obama endorsement is the kiss of death for Nevada Democrats —Las Vegas Review-Journal, column, 2018

An Endorsement From Barack Obama Might Be the Kiss of Death This Year —Mother Jones, column, congressional races, 2014

Sorry, Joe Biden: Barack Obama's endorsements have a huge record of failure —New York Post, column, 2020

According to Ballotpedia, "In 2020, Obama issued 232 endorsements.  96 Obama-endorsed candidates won and 136 lost."

You can see the big string of red Xes showing just how many of them lost with that coveted Obama endorsement.

That was in a year the Democrats won and controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House.  Quite a record there, Barry-o.

But the Democrats are desperate.  Joe Biden is apparently so bad that he drives voters to the other side.  Obama is just a loser-producer among Democrats.

This doesn't look as though Democrats have much good news to glom onto as this recall moves closer.  When you're relying on endorsers, it's bad; when you're relying on endorsers who drive the public away, it's really bad.

Serves them right.

Image: Twitter screen shot.

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