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In a twist on his 2008 campaign slogan, President Obama suggested that Republicans were adopting a "No, we can't" approach to the jobs crisis, blocking steps to boost the economy to deal him a political setback.
Obama spoke at a high school Tuesday on the second day of his bus tour through North Carolina and Virginia, a campaign-style trip in which he is trying to pressure Congress to pass his jobs package. He is also trying to rebuild his standing in the two battleground states.
The president warned that opponents of his $447-billion jobs bill risked a public backlash if they rejected proposals that would stave off teacher layoffs and boost hiring to fix aging public infrastructure. Those lawmakers will need to explain their votes to angry constituents, he said.
Obama rallied voters during his first run for the White House with an affirming message, "Yes, we can." Recalling those headier times, he urged people to phone, write and tweet their support for his jobs plan.
"I need your voices heard," Obama said. "I need you to give Congress a piece of your mind. Tell these members of Congress they're supposed to be working for you."
He continued: "Remind them that 'No, we can't' is not a good motto."
Republicans have dismissed the bus tour and are showing no more appetite for Obama's proposed American Jobs Act, a piece of which may be voted on by the Senate this week.
"The president has become convinced that the economy is not likely to be much better a year from now," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said to reporters Tuesday. "So he has started the campaign 13 months early, and he's trying to convince the American people that it's anybody else's fault but his that we're where we are."
Between speeches devoted to his jobs plan, Obama is working in some campaign visuals. His armored black bus has stopped in small towns for quick visits to stores and lunch spots. He cooed over a baby at a general store in Boone, N.C., on Monday after scooping up gobs of Halloween candy.
On Tuesday he stopped at Reid's House Restaurant near the North Carolina-Virginia border to shake hands with the lunchtime crowd.
One man told the president he was in the funeral business. That's "important work," Obama told him.
Conscious of Obama's sagging poll numbers, some prominent Democrats don't seem eager to appear with him. Tim Kaine, a former Democratic Party chairman who is running for a U.S. Senate seat from Virginia, didn't appear at Obama's stop here. A Kaine spokeswoman said he was in northern Virginia helping legislative candidates who face an upcoming election. Kaine appeared with Obama at a rally in Richmond last month and will attend more events with Obama as the election approaches, she said.
Obama is using the bus tour partly to reintroduce himself to voters after nearly three years of slow economic progress and fierce partisan clashes in Washington. Polls show Obama's approval rating is down in both North Carolina and Virginia — states he captured in 2008. Obama's advisors say they are not writing off either state, but experts say the president's relationship with voters needs repair.
"What these bus tours do is remind people who supported Obama why they supported him and build up some enthusiasm, so that people will want to work for Obama in the 2012 election," said Stephen Farnsworth, author of "Spinner-in-Chief: How Presidents Sell Their Policies and Themselves."
The trip is producing some good publicity. The lead story Tuesday in the Winston-Salem Journal was headlined "Obama Reaches Out" and included a front-page picture of Obama swarmed by supporters.
Although he is inviting Republicans to vote for his jobs plan, Obama is making no special effort to court them. He has painted a grim picture of a competing GOP proposal, and says Republicans are less interested in creating jobs than in rolling back some of the legislation passed early in his term.
"You can't pretend that creating dirtier air and water for our kids and fewer people on healthcare and less accountability on Wall Street is a jobs plan," he said Tuesday during a stop in Jamestown, N.C. "I think more teachers in the classroom is a jobs plan. More construction workers rebuilding our schools is a jobs plan. Tax cuts for small-business owners and working families is a jobs plan."
"That's the choice we face. And it's up to you to decide which plan is the real American Jobs Act."
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