So the Obama team is telling top donors he’s in a weaker position than in 2008. According to the Wall Street Journal Monday, the president’s team is trying to galvanize top Democratic donors by explaining that despite his rebound since the 2010 elections, his reelection prospects are far more difficult than they appear.

In other news, the Washington Post reported Sunday that Team Obama’s been engaged in some interesting under-the-radar efforts to fire up young voters. The way he's going about the latter may explain the first.

Voters under 30 were pivotal to the president's 2008 victory and they remain his strongest age group, but his approval rating there has sagged, and in the November elections, a series of college rallies imploring students to vote did nothing to save races in Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia and Pennsylvania for Democrats. To turn things around and quell fears of student apathy, the president has been meeting with young people in "round table" meetings on campuses, and his team have a plan for many more such meetings coming up.

Apathy among young people just may not be the problem, however. It may be the President's approach. In Ohio last month, for example, Obama took time out from a visit with Cleveland small business owners to tell student leaders he was interested in getting "your ideas, your input, your energy."  Yet, when students shared any of those things, the Obama team fell silent. According to reporting by Paul Wallsten, Obama and his staff are "comfortable with encouraging activism on grand causes like the environment and Darfur." They have less to say about Republican governors' plans' for deep cuts to education in an already horrendous job market.

Had Obama been looking for fired-up young people in Ohio, he could have found them --  just 140 miles south of where he was (in Cleveland)  -- in Columbus --  where on the day of his Ohio visit, much of the President's base could be found not around tables, but around the block, in their thousands at the State Capital, protesting Governor John Kasich's plan to balance the state budget on the backs of public school teachers and students.

Obama didn't just skip the rally (local leaders have mixed feelings about whether he'd help or hurt in any case) but he seemingly had nothing to say about the conflict to students.  He also chose, that very day, to shake Governor Kasich's hand in a meet and greet on the tarmac at the Cleveland airport.

Obama may want to tweak that fire-'em-up strategy before his 2012 prospects get any worse.