Breaking: President Obama will travel to Massachusetts on Sunday

Politico reports that President Obama will travel to Massachusetts on Sunday afternoon to campaign for the embattled Democrat Martha Coakley:

President Barack Obama will travel to Massachusetts on Sunday afternoon to campaign for Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley — a risky bet that puts Obama’s own credibility on the line on behalf of a weak candidate in hopes of averting a loss that would shatter the party’s 60-seat Senate supermajority.


Obama’s trip represents a stark, late recognition not just that Coakley may lose, but also that her defeat can’t be spun away. The defection of independent voters and some Democrats in one of the nation’s most liberal states would deal a stunning, and possibly fatal, blow to the centerpiece of Obama’s first-year agenda, health care reform, which congressional leaders would be left trying to jam through using procedural loopholes.


“It’s all about 60,” said a senior White House official.


Obama acknowledged the stakes in a robocall that Massachusetts voters began receiving Friday.


“I rarely make these calls, and I truly apologize for intruding on your day, but I had to talk to you about the election in Massachusetts on Tuesday, because the stakes are so high," he opened, going on to acknowledge that the outcome of the health care debate would depend on the state’s vote.


Obama’s decision came at the last minute, and after press Secretary Robert Gibbs had denied repeatedly this week that Obama had any plans to visit the state. The scramble that accompanied today’s announcement bore his comments out — Coakley and her allies won’t have time to shift their campaign’s television advertising to echo and amplify the president’s visit.