RALEIGH – When President Obama came to North Carolina Monday to talk about job creation, he accomplished his task – in the short run.

His task was to communicate a simple message to North Carolina voters: I know most of you are suffering, either because of high prices, unemployment, or underemployment. I’m working on it.

By November of next year, however, that message won’t be enough to pull conservative-leaning North Carolina into the Democratic column for a second time. If energy prices, food prices, and jobless rates remain high, the president will be unpopular among the state’s swing voters. Unless the Republicans nominate a horrible candidate –there are a couple in the current field, make no mistake – Obama won’t repeat his Carolina coup.

It almost didn’t happen the first time. He won by just a few thousand votes. At the time, I certainly didn’t expect him to take North Carolina. But everything broke Obama’s way during the fall of 2008. The financial crisis scared many voters into taking a desperate gamble with a candidate about whom they knew little. John McCain’s panicky response to the crisis demonstrated questionable leadership potential. Democrats also leapt ahead of Republicans at the retail level of politics, utilizing technology and changes in election law to produce a massive turnout of the Democratic base.

This combination of factors won’t recur in 2012. Obama is now a known quantity. Swing voters know that he tried massive borrowing and spending to stimulate the economy, and that it failed. Swing voters know that, contrary to his promise in the 2008 campaign, his health care plan does not allow them to keep their health plan if they like it. In reality, it will induce thousands of companies, both insurers and employers, to exit the group-insurance market, forcing as many as 78 million consumers into government-run purchasing networks that will offer heavily regulated, overly expensive plans, at great cost to taxpayers.

On other matters, the fuzzy Obama of 2008 has resolved into the clear picture of a leftist president more in keeping with the inclinations of European social democrats than with the traditions of American exceptionalism.

To those voters who thought President Bush had been too adventurous with foreign military engagements, President Obama has offered the prospect of more fighting in Afghanistan and new fighting in Libya. To those voters who thought forceful military intervention was the right response to the threat of Islamic terrorism, President Obama has presented an image of vacillation and appeasement.

Naturally, both groups of voters approved of Obama’s decision to order the successful military strike on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. Who didn’t approve? It was a great moment. But most of the president’s foreign-policy decisions have lacked coherence and effectiveness.

All that having been said, President Obama doesn’t have to win North Carolina to win reelection. Right now, he still has at least even odds of winning next year. Here are some key reasons:

• His status. Despite some disappointment with the president’s actions and the trajectory of the economy since 2008, much of the Democratic base will turn out in droves again in 2012 to keep him in the White House. They see 2008 as, among other things, a symbolic victory just because of who Barack Obama is. They will be loath to see it tarnished by a single, failed term as president.

• His resources. The president’s campaign team will raise hundreds of millions of dollars and, based on past experience, will spend it effectively to turn out the base and hit swing voters with dozens of powerful messages next fall.

• His adversaries. The Republican field of presidential candidates lacks a star. Mitt Romney is the frontrunner but will have a hard time challenging Obama effectively on health care. Tim Pawlenty is another credible president but doesn’t seem very exciting. Rick Perry is an impressive politician, but will voters want to elect another Texas governor? Most of the other aspirants are good talkers but unproven executives.

It will be a competitive race. Only fools think its result is preordained. At the risk of appearing the fool (again), however, I doubt Obama will win in North Carolina.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.