Obama's swing state barometers

There’s no better way to gauge how President Barack Obama is faring in swing states than to read the body language of the Democratic members of Congress who live in them.

So it’s a measure of the president’s mixed standing in North Carolina that Democratic Rep. Mike McIntyre goes to great lengths to avoid talking about Obama while Sen. Kay Hagan served as a surrogate today on a teleconference arranged by the Obama campaign.

The two are facing different political circumstances: McIntyre has a tough reelection ahead and is a top GOP target in November; Hagan isn’t on the ballot this year.

But Hagan does go before the voters in 2014 and must run statewide, which means she already has to start thinking about her reelection campaign — and the forces that could affect it.

Publicly praising the president’s speech, rather than keeping a low profile and letting the opportunity pass, is an expenditure of political capital that could very well come back to haunt her — especially since the Democratic National Convention is in Charlotte this year. If a first-termer like Hagan is that far out front in supporting the president, it’s a sign that, despite recent polling showing some slippage, Obama is still in the hunt in North Carolina and that the political return on investment is still on the positive side.