No hero’s welcome for Obama in California

However, it’s not as friendly anymore as the White House would have hoped.

The president’s support is eroding in even one of the most reliably blue states nationwide, with his approval ratings following the same downward trajectory as in less-welcoming political environments.

The trend, analysts said, is of national importance.

“In California, the recent decline is greatest among the voter segments that were his strongest supporters in the last two elections,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the California Field Poll, whose last survey found that Obama’s largest dip in support came in the greater Los Angeles and San Francisco areas.

Obama’s time in office has increasingly been devoted to putting out fires on the world stage — the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Russian incursions in Ukraine and Ebola — rather than pursuing the type of progressive domestic agenda that most Californians envisioned when he took office.

That focus has left a growing number of Californians cool to a president who pledged to deliver historic changes on the home front.

“There was growing impatience with the president following through on his agenda,” DiCamillo told the Washington Examiner. “People were expecting quite a bit. That has tempered. They aren’t seeing results.”

For example, the latest poll published by DiCamillo last month found that 45 percent of Californians approved of Obama’s job performance. While better than his national numbers, it was the first time the president had fallen below a 50 percent approval rating there since September 2011.

In a low-turnout election, Democrats can ill afford to have its most loyal supporters stay home, even in California.

Although Democrats are expected to maintain control of all statewide offices, Republicans are targeting a handful of competitive House races in a state that overwhelmingly backed Obama in 2008 and 2012.

“I would expect that Republicans will pull out close elections in some competitive congressional races,” DiCamillo predicted of California. “That is what national observers will focus on.”

California has proven to be Obama’s home away from home, at least for raising money. Though Democrats don’t necessarily want to appear alongside the president, they more than welcome the money he is pouring into their campaign war chests.

This week, Obama will travel to his favorite two spots to raise money: Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

And even though some Democrats concede that the 2008 version of Obama is a distant memory, they argue the president’s demise in California has been overstated.

“No, he can’t walk on water,” quipped one veteran California-based Democratic strategist. “But he’s raised more money than any political figure in the history of the world. If that’s the role he has to play now, so be it. The majority of people here still see him as far better than the Republican alternative.”

But Californians hardly envisioned Obama as merely a walking ATM for congressional candidates. They saw a president who would bring many of the reforms playing out at the state level to Washington.

Maria Shriver, then the Golden State’s first lady, said of Obama in 2008, “Were [he] a state, he’d be California.”

How Californians — and ardent Democrats — reconcile the president’s vision of progressivism with his actual governing track record will play a major part in the shaping of his legacy.

If California is any indication, even liberal audiences seem to give less credence to the claim that the president is merely the victim of an obstructionist Congress.

And though Obama will likely trumpet his accomplishments over the next three days, exchange pleasantries with wealthy donors and talk up his repeated trips to the state, many Californians will be left wanting more.

“The problem is he’s less popular than he used to be all over the country,” said Terry Moe, the William Bennett Munro professor of political science at Stanford University. “He’s taken a lot of hits. Now is not a good time for him.”