Mired in one of the bleakest patches of his presidency, Barack Obama hit the US heartland yesterday, seeking to rekindle the spirit of hope which swept him to the White House but has been crushed by a lame economy.

Mr Obama will embark on a fabled ritual of American politics – a bus tour to rural areas of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois, which have all felt the lash of the economic crisis and will be important to his 2012 re-election bid.

Hope is a commodity in short supply, as fears mount that the tepid recovery from the worst economic crisis since the 1930s will fizzle into a second recession and with unemployment stubbornly pegged at 9.1 per cent.

A staggering 74 per cent of Americans think the country is moving in the wrong direction, according to a RealClearPolitics polls average, and a CNN survey this month found 60 per cent think the economy is still in a downturn.

Mr Obama, reeling from a showdown with Republicans over debt, has seen his approval rating dip below 45 per cent, and slowed growth in the economy and jobs market are casting a cloud over his 2012 hopes.

Just a few months ago, after the killing of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, many commentators were predicting Mr Obama would stroll to the second term that every presidency needs to be considered a historic success.

But when Republican Tea Party lawmakers drove the US to the brink of a default in a row over raising the government’s borrowing authority, Mr Obama’s prestige took a severe hit.

Now, he can be demeaned by his political foes as the President who lost America’s AAA credit rating, after Standard & Poor’s concluded Washington brinkmanship meant America could not fix its economy.

Even the media, which conservatives complained was soft on Mr Obama in 2008, has turned against him, doubting his political backbone: New York Times commentator Maureen Dowd warned he was “strangely irrelevant in Washington”.

Critics also complain the President is fixated with cooperating with Republicans who have made no secret of their desire to destroy his presidency.

Mr Obama seems to have recognised his perilous position.

In a combative appearance in Michigan last Thursday he slammed Congress – which has worse approval ratings than he does – accusing Republicans of blocking his job creating programmes.

He pressed home his attack in his weekly radio and internet address on Saturday.

“We can no longer let partisan brinksmanship get in our way – the idea that making it through the next election is more important than making things right... That’s what’s holding us back – the fact that some in Congress would rather see their opponents lose than see America win.”

“You’ve got a right to be frustrated. I am. Because you deserve better.”

The President has promised a package of measures to tackle the US deficit and unemployment within weeks, but its prospects in the Republican House of Representatives appear uncertain.

For now, he is demanding Republicans pass an extension to a payroll tax cut, endorse his plan to help Iraq and Afghan war veterans find jobs and ratify trade pacts with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

Dan Shea, professor at the Allegheny College said Mr Obama might consider a major new jobs programme, and dare the Republicans to veto it, which would at least allow him to make a new case to voters.

He would then be able to say “this is what you will get from me, this is what you will get from them”, Prof. Shea said.

The President embarks on his tour at a time when Republican presidential hopefuls are escalating attacks on his policies, and his prime vulnerability, the high unemployment rate.

The Republican of the moment, Texas Governor Rick Perry, who launched his campaign on Saturday, accused Mr Obama of presiding over an “economic disaster”.

In the last 70 years, no President has won a second term when the unemployment rate was greater than seven percent, apart from Ronald Reagan, who benefited from an economic growth spurt.

But Mr Obama has little reason to think things will get better soon – even before the full impact of the slowing recovery became clear, the Congressional Budget Office predicted unemployment would be at 8.2 per cent by late 2012.