President Barack Obama came to the West Coast looking to sell a long-term plan for dipping the nation's deficit. But he couldn't flee the reality that a lot of Americans are still waiting for short-term solutions to their financial problems, from persistent being without a job to the crippled housing market.
Voters in California and Nevada did express both an attention and an understanding about the need for deficit lessening. Yet they made clear that the economic upturn that's given Washington lawmakers the space to start talk about longer-term fiscal matters still hasn't fully taken hold in ways that are meaningful to them.
Obama long has said he knows the economic recovery hasn't come to many parts of the country. But as he shifts into re-election mode, his confront will be to show the public that he's still paying attention on issues like job creation, even as the chat in Washington change to how to bring down the nation's huge arrears.
