In the high stakes game for his political future, the Democratic candidate for US Senate from Illinois is going all in with his strong ties to President Barack Obama. State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias has released a new ad in which the president states, "Alexi's my friend. I know his character. You can trust him. You can count on him." But as Mr. Obama's popularity wanes even in his home state, the ad may do more harm than good in Mr. Giannoulias' neck-and-neck race against Congressman Mark Kirk (R-Illinois).

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While a slim majority (51%) of registered Illinois voters still approve of the president's job performance, 39% disapprove. (source) And there's no indication that the national enthusiasm gap that shows Republicans much more likely than Democrats to vote in November won't have an effect on the Giannoulias/Kirk race.

Yet in this campaign season when so many Democratic candidates are putting as much distance between themselves and the president as possible, Mr. Giannoulias is remaining a proud member of Team Obama. The endorsement in the new ad was filmed at a fundraiser for Giannoulias early last month when the president was in Illinois to campaign for the candidate. In addition, Vice President Joe Biden, White House senior adviser David Axelrod and Obama 2008 Obama campaign manager and Democratic strategist David Plouffe have also campaigned for Mr. Giannoulias. (source)

Perhaps the main reason Mr. Giannoulias is running on his close association with an increasingly unpopular president is that he has nothing else to offer. To this point, the biggest news coming out of Camp Giannoulias was when the bank owned by his family was shut down by federal regulators in April. The failure led to public reminders of Broadway Bank's connection to organized crime - it loaned a pair of Chicago crime figures about $20 million when Alexi Giannoulias was a senior loan officer and was using that position as a launching pad for his political career. (source)

But President Obama says the voters of Illinois can trust him.