LA Times Pretends Obama's Still Popular in California

So Obama was in California the past couple of days fielding questions from planted audience members (one call himself a "patriotic millionaire") and the reporter for the Los Angeles Times apparently feels he's part of Obama's re-election campaign.

Looking out at the crowd Monday, Obama called on a retired Google employee, Doug Edwards, who said, "My question is, would you please raise my taxes?"

The audience applauded.

The question was the ultimate softball for Obama, a chance to lay out his case for raising taxes on affluent Americans. His aim is to cut the deficit but preserve funding for college scholarships, research, public works and other projects.

Indeed, staged questions can be considered softballs. And so is "reporting" like this:

The president, who remains popular in California despite his national slump, urged the crowd to press members of Congress to approve not only higher taxes on the wealthy but also new spending on roads and bridges and the rest of his economic agenda. The nation, he said, cannot "just cut our way out of this problem."

"We're laying off teachers in droves right here in California," he said. "It doesn't make any sense. It's unfair to our kids."

Um, so we have a state run entirely by Democrats and he points out how "unfair" it is to lay off teachers. So we ask, how is this the fault of anyone other than Obama and the Democrats?

Curious to note how according to the reporter "remains popular in California". Well, that's interesting considering the most recent poll showed his approval rating plummeting in the state.

For the first time since Obama became president in January 2009, fewer than half (46 percent) of California voters approve of his performance as president - a figure that's dropped eight percentage points in three months, according to a Field Poll survey of attitudes toward Obama released today.