With less than a month to go before the midterm elections in November, Mr. Obama, facing what most political observers predict will be significant losses of Democratic seats in Congress, was using every weapon in his arsenal to prod the people who helped propel him into the White House two years ago not to cede the partisan battlefield to the Republicans this year.
“Don’t make me look bad now,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m betting on you.”
Thursday’s rally, held at Bowie State University under beautiful clear skies, drew several thousand college students and local residents, many of them African Americas — core components of the Democratic Party base.
“I’m going to need you just as fired up as you were in 2008,” Mr. Obama told them.
When a heckler yelled “You’re a liar!” in response, people nearby spent the next few minutes shouting the heckler down, making it difficult for many in the audience to hear what the president, who was flanked on the dais by Maryland’s top elected Democrats, was saying.
“Two years ago, you defied the conventional wisdom in Washington,” Mr. Obama told the crowd. “I know everybody here remembers the inauguration. I know it was cold, but everybody here was having a good time. Beyoncé was singing.” He said it was imperative to harness that euphoria again.
Governor Martin O’Malley, who is once again battling the man he defeated when the Democrats were riding high in 2006 — former Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. — sounded familiar Democratic themes in introducing Mr. Obama. “They took six years to drive the country into a ditch, and then wonder why this president can’t make it right as rain in 18 months,” Mr. O’Malley said, to cheers.
But then, foreshadowing the tough road ahead for his own party this year, Mr. O’Malley added, perhaps unhelpfully: “They can take back New Jersey, they can take back Virginia, but they can’t take back Maryland!”
After the rally in Bowie, Mr. Obama was headed for Chicago to campaign to keep his old Senate seat in Democratic hands.
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