Obama claims most Americans aren't closely following 2012 race at campaign stop

June 12, 2012: President Barack Obama greets people in the audience after speaking at a campaign event at The Franklin Institute. (AP)

PHILADELPHIA – President Barack Obama said Tuesday night he believed the majority of Americans were not closely following the ups and downs of the presidential campaign.

Obama, who attended six fundraisers in Baltimore and Philadelphia on Tuesday, has not had a good start to June after coming under fire for saying "the private sector is doing fine" during a news conference last Friday.

Speaking at a fundraiser at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, Obama said he believed the good news is that the American people agree with his campaign's policies of moving the country forward.

"They're not following ... the ups and downs, the ins and outs of this campaign," he said.

"But they do have a sense of what's true. They have pretty good instincts about what works and they're not persuaded that an economy built on the notion that everybody here is on their own is somehow going to result in a stronger, more prosperous America. So our job is to just make sure that we get that message out."

Earlier Tuesday, a day after prominent Democratic strategists warned the party's basic message is not working, Obama spoke at a fundraising event near Baltimore and delivered a version of the same speech he has been giving for months, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Obama, speaking at a private home, said that "we've been able to right the ship a little bit" when it comes to the economy, according to a White House transcript. "We're moving in the right direction."

Another term would help "consolidate these gains and ... lock in the kind of progress that we need to ensure that America's middle class is growing again," he said.

Democracy Corps, a group founded by longtime Democratic strategist James Carville and pollster Stanley Greenberg, released a memo Monday based on focus group sessions held with residents of two important battleground states: Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The memo, which Carville and Greenberg helped write, says: "What is clear from this fresh look at public consciousness on the economy is how difficult this period has been for both non-college-educated and college-educated voters -- and how vulnerable the prevailing narratives articulated by national Democratic leaders are."

"We will face an impossible headwind in November if we do not move to a new narrative, one that contextualizes the recovery but, more importantly, focuses on what we will do to make a better future for the middle class," it said.