Prayers, cards and doubts on Obama's 49th

Two years after he prayed at a Washington gas station for lower fuel prices, Rocky Twyman was at it again, this time praying outside the White House for a divine leg-up for President Barack Obama.

"Would you all join in a prayer with us for the country? It's Obama's birthday today and he needs God's help," Twyman told two passing couples from Florida.

The four retirees stopped immediately, folded their hands and bowed their heads in silence.

And in an only-in-America moment, Twyman stood with his back to the White House and intoned a prayer for the president.

"Oh God, thank you for these people from Florida. We want you to be with President Obama right now. Help him to turn to thee. May he be able to use the wisdom of God to stop the oil spill and to also put our great country back to work," Twyman prayed.

"Amen," said the tourists before they turned toward the Treasury building and went on their way.

In May 2008, when gasoline was roughly 3.60 dollars a gallon in Washington, Twyman, who runs a public relations agency as his day job, led a small group of activists in prayer at a gas station in Washington, asking a higher power to bring down the price of fuel.

The prayers worked -- or something did -- and the price of a gallon of gas came down and stayed down. On Obama's birthday, it was at 2.70 dollars.

"The Pray at the Pump movement has decided to come out of retirement and ask God to be with Obama and give him the wisdom he needs," Twyman told AFP.

"No matter what he does, it's failing. His poll ratings are slipping. Everything around him is like sinking sand."

A poll conducted early last month showed that nearly six in 10 voters lacked faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country, and a majority said they did not approve of his handling of the economy.

"He really needs divine intervention. And so we pray for him because, well, when we started praying at the pump, the prices started coming down," said Twyman.

Even before Twyman beseeched God to help Obama stop the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the president got some welcome news on his birthday as BP said its latest effort to plug the undersea well that has been spewing crude into the Gulf for months appeared to be working.

Obama will receive birthday wishes and words of support in an ecard signed by some 1.27 million of his grassroots supporters later Wednesday, and Twyman was getting passersby to sign a less high-tech birthday card to wish the president well as he turned 49.

By early afternoon, a dozen Americans, Britons, Mexicans, French, Filipinos and Syrians had signed Twyman's simple card for the president and added personalized messages.

Meanwhile, a poll released on the president's birthday showed once again that a chunk of the population still questions whether or not he was born in the United States.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll showed that 11 percent of Americans believe Obama was definitely not born in the United States and another 16 percent say he was probably not born in the United States.

The right-wing "birther" movement consists of those who claim that Obama, whose father was Kenyan and mother from the midwestern state of Kansas, should have been excluded from running for the presidency because of his alleged foreign birth, citing a clause in the US constitution that says the country's presidency is open to natural-born citizens only.

The constitution also stipulates that natural-born citizens do not have to be born in the United States.

Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after the archipelago became a state, but birthers insist his birth certificate is a fake.

The president headed to Chicago to celebrate his birthday with friends, but without his family: First Lady Michelle Obama is in Spain with daughter Sasha, while the older of the two Obama girls, Malia, is at summer camp.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Chicago that Obama had received a phone call from his wife and Sasha in Spain, as well as one from Malia at camp, to wish him a happy birthday.

"And needless to say, both those calls were the highlights of his day," Gibbs said.