Obama's bus tour a flat failure

The question is, when will reality set in for Obama?

Closing out his bus tour on a low-key note, President Obama made a pitch for his jobs package at a firehouse, where a subdued crowd needed a bit of prompting to applaud his proposal to boost the economy.

Anytime a crowd needs "prompting" to applaud what a president says - especially on friendly turf with presumably his core supporters in attendance - you might want to get out the butter and jam because you know the prez is toast.

Obama visited Fire Station 9 to draw attention to a major piece of his $447-billion jobs package. He wants to spread $35 billion among states and cities, in part to prevent layoffs of police and firefighters, and would pay for it with a surtax on millionaires. Congress may vote on that measure as early as this week.

On Wednesday afternoon, Obama stood at a lectern against a backdrop of firefighters and offered his prescription for solving the persistent jobs crisis: "A fair shot for everybody; a fair share from everybody. That's the principle that built America."

The president got a polite reception from the 100 or so people crowded into the station garage. Early in his speech he mentioned his American Jobs Act.

One or two people clapped.

"You can go ahead and clap," the president said. "Go ahead, nothing wrong with it."

What an embarrassment.

This entire "Class Warfare Tour" has been a bust. He tried to do a balancing act with the OWS crowd, endorsing their protest without endorsing some of the loonier and hateful things that are coming out of the encampments. He tried pretending his jobs bill isn't dead. He tried to rev up crowds by getting them angry at "millionaires and billionaires" without much success.

Nobody is listening and few care. He already gives of the stench of not a lame duck, but a dead duck - a failed one term presidency that people will talk about in the same breath as Jimmy Carter.