How Obama Can Save Democrats in the Midterms

With the odds stacked against him, pundits offer their advice

With just four months away from the midterm elections, President Obama has been stumping for Democrats and giving a preview of his fall election message. However, prospects look bleak for Democrats as the president's approval rating sinks to a mere 38% among independents. Between now and the midterms, can the president turn things around? Pundits offer their advice:

• Win the Support of Middle Class Women  On ABC's This Week, Jake Tapper hosts a round-table discussion on the Democrats' midterm prospects. National Journal's Ron Brownstein emphasizes the importance of middle class women:

• Enact a Pro-Business Agenda, writes former Clinton pollster Douglas Schoen at the New York Daily News: "The left-wing economists urging Obama to... pour more taxpayer money into the economy now, regardless of the impact on the deficits, are prescribing electoral suicide. Obama needs a robust, fast-acting job-creation strategy that doesn't throw fiscal responsibility to the wind. To start, he should provide entrepreneurs and small businesses with new incentives to create jobs. He must fight to enact a payroll tax holiday, new lending through the Small Business Administration's loan program, an extension of the Small Business Innovation Research program and tax credits for businesses that invest in research and development."

• It's All About Passion, writes E.J. Dionne in The New Republic: "Passion counts in politics. It motivates a movement's most fervent followers but can also carry along moderates attracted to those who promise change and profess great certainty about how to achieve it. Barack Obama got himself elected president by understanding this...On paper, Democrats have a rational solution to their political math problem. They must still find the passion that executing it will require."

• Don't Worry About the Tea Party, writes Bill Scher at The Huffington Post: "The Tea Party is not large. Poll after poll has shown the Tea Party to be nothing more than a far-right faction of the Republican Party. They do not represent anything close to a majority of the country (a mere 18 percent in the April New York Times poll). And the more other Americans hear about the Tea Party's conservative ideas, the less they like it."