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Obama backs governor where key Senate seat fell

Massachusetts is a heavily Democratic state, but Obama last campaigned in Boston early this year during the failed US Senate campaign of the state's attorney general, Martha Coakley.

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US president Barack Obama urged voters in Massachusetts to back the state's governor, Deval Patrick, at a raucous campaign stop on Saturday, pushing for a fellow Democrat who is in a tight re-election fight against a former healthcare executive.             
 
Patrick "inspires me as a leader," Obama told a cheering crowd of about 7,000 people at a "Move Massachusetts Forward" rally at a Boston convention centre.                                           
 
He said he did not always pay attention to every politician, "but when Deval speaks, I listen."                                           
 
Polls show Patrick with about a 5-point lead over Charles Baker, former chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, with only about two weeks to go before the November 2 congressional and gubernatorial elections.                                           
 
Massachusetts is a heavily Democratic state, but Obama last campaigned in Boston early this year during the failed US Senate campaign of the state's attorney general, Martha Coakley. Her defeat by Scott Brown, then a state senator, cost his party the "super majority" in the US Senate that would have made it far easier to get his legislation through Congress.                        

Brown's election proved Republicans can win in Massachusetts, and in a year when a sputtering economy and high joblessness have turned many voters against incumbents, particularly Obama's fellow Democrats, Patrick's approval ratings have been hit by tax increases and a series of budget battles with the state legislature as he seeks a second term.
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