EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK:

President Obama has a dilemma.

On one hand he has Republicans lined up to take their best shots, hoping they can sheer off some of the thick political armor that comes with high approval ratings. Meanwhile, he has to watch his left flank as liberal Democrats try to use their new congressional muscle to shove through their policies. Making matters worse, the so-called blue-dog conservative Democrats are pressuring Obama to control spending.

So Obama is turning to what he does best: He’s in full-on campaign mode. For all the comparisons of Obama with FDR, he appears more like Truman these days.

That wasn’t a town hall meeting Wednesday at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds. That was a campaign rally. He’s not courting voters now; he’s energizing his base and asking his supporters to pressure Congress to pass his budget. Complain all you want about the politics, by any measure it’s smart strategy.

And if Wednesday’s performance in Costa Mesa was any gauge, Obama served notice he’s in the zone. It was vintage Obama, cracking one-liners, taking great pains to demonstrate bipartisanship and heaving red meat by the armfuls to an adoring crowd.

The real statement, though, wasn’t to California or Costa Mesa. It was to Washington D.C. and the rest of the country.

UCI political science professor Mark Petracca put it best: The rest of the country still has this stereotype of Orange County as an ultra-conservative bastion, so it’s a highly potent message to send to Washington D.C. that even in this red zone the people have his back.

“The first best place for him to go would be where Rush [Limbaugh] takes his show, but actually this is even better. He’s going into the belly of the beast,” Petracca said.

Petracca’s been talking to national reporters all week since news broke that Obama would have the town hall here, and it was clear the national perception of Orange County still remains colored by its conservative past. Not many know that Obama carried Costa Mesa and narrowly lost Orange County.

“This is still known as the home of the John Birch Society,” Petracca said.

Obama’s other aim was to put some focus on the importance of lifting California out of the economic doldrums. California’s arguably in the worst shape, and as we like to say, the trends all start here.

“You could argue for the country’s economy to improve, California will have to improve first,” Petracca said.

So will the Obamaphiles be willing to hit the campaign trail again, so to speak? Will they, as Obama’s campaign strategist David Plouffe has been imploring them to do in recent e-mails, talk up Obama’s budget to their neighbors and lawmakers?

It seems so from some of the folks at Wednesday’s rally.

Rodney Morgan, an industrial plumber from Los Angeles, said he wasn’t always so inclined to get involved in politics before this election, but now he finds himself donating more to the homeless charities near his home and is willing to call his congressman to help Obama win votes for his budget.

Then there are the younger folks like Kate Drexler of Costa Mesa, who just got the chance to vote in her first election. She supported Obama then and will continue to. And she is no mindless minion. She’s well aware of what the debate on Capitol Hill is all about and was even dialed in enough to know how Obama’s taking it from the right and left in Congress.

“This is definitely a generation for change” and Obama leads that change, Drexler said. She waited in line for 13 hours to get a ticket for the town hall. How much you want to bet she’s willing to start petition drives and chat up her neighbors?

Robert Villegas of Santa Ana works for State Farm in Irvine and has seen how the staggered economy has hurt business. There’s a sense of urgency to get something done, he said. He’s even willing to give the president a long leash for mistakes so long as it appears he’s hard at work and is showing some improvement.

“The last thing we want is foot-dragging,” he said. “We need to move it. No more sitting back.”

The first question Obama fielded had to do with his reelection plans. He sort of laughed that off.

“I’ve been in office two months now. The last thing I’m thinking about is reelection,” Obama said.

“But if I could get done what needs to get done in four years, I’d rather be a good president for four years than a mediocre president for eight years,” Obama said.

In other words, he has a lot of political capital and he’s going for it. This definitely won’t be a caretaker administration.

City Editor PAUL ANDERSON may be reached at (714) 966-4633 or at [email protected].