<br>Obama engaging in backyard politics in Ohio to focus on everyday struggles

COLUMBUS — "No regrets," President Barack Obama simply said Wednesday of his controversial position that a Muslim mosque has a legal right to be built near "ground zero" of the 9/11 attacks in New York City.

The comment was a brief departure from the economic message that Mr. Obama intended to deliver and the political points he wanted to score while standing in the backyard of a Columbus family. The remark was a response to a reporter's question shouted after the event as the President shook hands with about 40 people gathered to hear from him in a north Columbus residential community.

Mr. Obama has taken political heat for his position that a mosque could legally be built on private property located near the site of the former World Trade Center towers. He has also stressed, however, that his belief is separate from the question of whether it would be wise that the mosque be built there.

He may have been standing in a Columbus backyard, but Mr. Obama spent time praising Toledo for working to reinvent itself in the green-energy sector. He also took a little credit himself.

"Toledo is actually becoming a leader in this, creating good jobs in areas like building solar panels, wind turbines, advanced battery manufacturing," Mr. Obama said. "There is a whole series of huge potential manufacturing industries in which we end up being world leaders and as a bonus end up creating a more energy efficient economy that is also good for the environment.

"We made at the beginning of my term the largest investment in clean energy in our history, so there are plants opening up all over the country creating products made in America that are now being shipped overseas," he said.

Microphone in hand in town hall-style, the President spoke and took questions from a small crowd sitting at picnic tables in the backyard of architect Joe Weithman, his wife, Rhonda, and their two children in the tree-lined, residential Columbus neighborhood of Sharon Heights. The family benefited on more than one front from the $787 billion economic stimulus package that Mr. Obama pushed through Congress last year almost exclusively with Democratic votes.

Mr. Weithman's architectural firm benefited from work on a local police station renovation project funded by the stimulus while Ms. Weithman was able to maintain the family's health insurance thanks to stimulus subsidies after losing her job.

Mr. Obama met briefly with the Weithmans inside their $230,000 two-story home before moving to their backyard. His presence was embraced by the dark-suited Gov. Ted Strickland, U.S Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), and U.S. Senate candidate and lieutenant governor Lee Fisher, all of whom looked somewhat out of place among the sports shirts, shorts, and casual attire of the local residents.

Ohio's unemployment rate hovers at 10.5 percent, a full percentage point above the national average, but Mr. Strickland said afterwards that he welcomed the President's presence. The President left the residential setting for a downtown theater to headline a fund-raiser for Mr. Strickland and the Ohio Democratic Party, with ticket prices ranging from $100 for standing-room-only space to $2,500 for priority seating for lunch with the President.

Ohio, considered crucial to Mr. Obama's re-election in 2012, was part of a five-day presidential fund-raising tour for Democratic candidates. From Columbus, he headed to a similar fund-raiser in Florida.

Mr. Fisher's Republican opponent for U.S. Senate, Rob Portman, turned Mr. Obama's visit and its importance to the President's future into his own fund-raising opportunity.

"It is clear that Ohio is a ‘crown jewel' for Democrats," he wrote in a fund-raising e-mail sent to supporters. "If the Democrats win in Ohio in 2010, they will use it as a platform for the presidential race in November of 2012. A Democrat win in Ohio will energize Ohio Democrats and send a message to the nation that Ohioans support the status quo in Washington DC of tax and spend and job-killing proposals."

A new AP-GfK poll shows that the President's approval rating is at 49 percent. The rating drops to 41 percent when it comes to his handling of the economy.