Back To The Buckeye State

President Obama returns to Ohio again today to revisit the city he launched his jobs campaign in two years ago as candidate Obama: Lorain.

Ted Fenik worked for National Gypsum for nine years before the plant went idle. "I definitely don't blame Barack Obama for me losing my job," Fenik said. "When the housing industry took the slide down, you know, that's what killed us."

"We just need to bring more manufacturing jobs back to America," Fenik said. "You know, it just seem like they're all going overseas."

Ken Sauvey, 55, still hasn’t found work and has been without benefits for more than a year.

"We're trying to save our house," Sauvey said. "We don't want to lose our house.  Everything we make goes towards the house and pays the bills and just to stay about ground.  When that runs out I may have to leave the state.  I don't know.  That's just a scary situation."

He's been looking for work for two years. "They just don't hire a 55 year old man.  I'll put it that way.  And so, it is frustrating."

Sauvey told us he would ask President Obama "to keep up his work for the working man, the people that need it the most.  I know he's got a lot on his plate."

He does.  But so do millions of other Americans.  And if Obama folds on health care, they're not going to buy anything else he's selling either.

Many in Washington the Village want Obama to just throw everything under the bus and work on jobs, which of course means cutting corporate taxes like Republicans want.  The Republicans have already shown that Obama will get the blame if they block programs the GOP doesn't like that might benefit the working class or the president's numbers, so if he does propose a new jobs program, the Republicans fully expect to win that battle by blocking it.  41 is more than 59.

Obama can break the cycle and do some real good.  But right now he's on the sidelines. Health care doesn't seem to matter if your unemployed, but on the contrary it becomes far more important.