President Barack Obama hopes to reach The Daily Show’s young, liberal viewers, analysts say
Barack Obama is to appear with Jon Stewart on his satirical Daily Show, a first for a sitting president.
The appearance comes six days before mid-term elections that could see the Democrats lose their grip on Congress.
After weeks on the campaign trail, Mr Obama has spent the past two days in the White House, speaking by phone to activists and giving radio interviews.
Campaigning on discontent with the economy, polls suggest Republicans are poised to take control of the House.
Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart takes aim nightly at politicians of both parties, but presenter Jon Stewart leans to the left and much of the show’s content targets apparent hypocrisy and bigotry among Republicans.
The show’s audience also tends to be young, and the president may be hoping to build enthusiasm among his base ahead of the vote, analysts say.
“You’ve got a constituency of younger voters that watch that show, and it’s a good place to go and reach them,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Tuesday.
“The president hasn’t been shy about going to the places where people are getting their information and trying to make his case.”
The president has been on the show four times previously – during the 2008 presidential campaign and during his earlier tenure in the US Senate.
Also this weekend, Stewart and another Comedy Central presenter, Stephen Colbert, are to hold a rally on the US National Mall in Washington, expected to attract legions of young liberal voters.
Wrestling victory
Meanwhile, campaigning continued at a furious pitch across the country.
In Colorado, Democratic Senator Michael Bennett, who is fighting hard to win election to the seat to which he was appointed in 2008, latched on to a video in which his Republican opponent said he did not believe in the official separation of church and state.
“While we have a Constitution that is very strong in the sense that we are not going to have a religion that’s sanctioned by the government, it doesn’t mean that we need to have a separation between government and religion,” Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck told a party gathering in a video from 2009 that has just surfaced.
Mr Bennett’s campaign hoped to use it to portray the Republican as an extreme conservative.
Connecticut Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon, a political novice who grew wealthy as a top executive at a professional wrestling league, won a minor victory.
A federal judge in the state ruled that her supporters may wear professional wrestling paraphernalia to the polls on Tuesday without violating rules prohibiting electioneering at voting stations.
And in California, Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina was released from hospital, a day after she was admitted for treatment of an infection associated with recent breast cancer surgery.
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