White House insists Obama's next bus tour isn't political
By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
Updated 1d 11h ago
President Obama speaks in Raleigh, N.C.
By Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP
President Obama will kick off a three-day bus trip through small towns in politically competitive North Carolina and Virginia Monday, but White House officials insist the trip is about jobs, not votes.
So much so, in fact, that they convened a conference call Sunday to reiterate that point several times, pointing out that the trip is fully on the taxpayers' dime, not the president's re-election campaign's.
'The message to the American people and to Congress will be clear," said principal deputy spokesman Josh Earnest. "Pass the bill this week to protect the job of a North Carolina teacher, or come down here, look her in the eye...."
Well, you get the idea. Obama's message for the next three days will be to challenge Congress -- particularly Republicans -- to support key elements of his jobs plan or explain why they won't.
The trip coincides with a new legislative strategy for Obama and congressional Democrats. Now that Senate Republicans have blocked the full $447 billlion plan from being considered, Democrats are breaking it apart.
The Senate will start this week with $35 billion in federal aid to state and local governments intended to preserve the jobs of teachers, police and firefighters. The White House estimates it would support the jobs of 400,000 teachers.
Obama will take that message to two high schools, a community college, a firehouse, a small airport, a YMCA and an Air Force base in the two Southern states he won in 2008 -- North Carolina by the narrowest of margins, Virginia more handily.
He'll even stop by Fredericksburg, Va., on Wednesday, next door to the House district of Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who has become the Democrats' chosen poster boy for obstructionism. Again, Earnest denies any political intentions.
'There's no specific reason to target Congressman Cantor, other than to ask him to join with Democrats and Republicans to pass the American Jobs Act," Earnest said.
While Obama is on the road down south, Vice President Biden will take an identical message to York, Pa., Tuesday. Pennsylvania is another key state in the 2012 election -- one that Biden happens to have been born in."
I wish this incompetent, man child, wee-weed up, racist president would just lock himself in the white house until his term is over instead of constantly going on these worthless campaign tours that waste more and more taxpayer money.
