On The Road Again

President Obama's latest effort to push his jobs plan is a bus tour through my home state of North Carolina and neighboring Virginia starting today.

White House officials said Sunday that Obama will use every stop of the bus trip to press lawmakers in Washington to pass parts of his $447 billion jobs package. Senate Republicans last week blocked the full package from advancing, but Obama has said he'll continue to push recalcitrant Republicans to pass individual pieces of the legislation.

"I'm going to travel all over the country over the next few weeks so that we can remind Congress that's their job," he said during his weekend radio address, taped at a Detroit GM plant. "There's still time to create jobs and grow our economy right now. There's still time for Congress to do the right thing. We just need to act."

The trip comes as recent polls show Obama with some of the lowest ratings of his presidency, but Congress polls even lower and at least one poll suggests that voters like the jobs bill — and taxing the wealthiest Americans to pay for it.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found 30 percent of those polled in favor of the bill, with 22 percent opposed and 44 percent with no opinion. When the parts of the bill were explained, 63 percent favored passage.

"The American people support every single plank of that bill, and we're going to vote on every single one of them," Obama campaign advisor David Axelrod said on ABC's This week.

But House Republican Majority leader Eric Cantor, whose district Obama visited last month pushing for his jobs package, suggested on Fox News Sunday that Obama should "stop the campaigning. Let's go find the things that are in common between (the GOP) plan and his."

Funny, last time I checked it was Congress's job to legislate and the President's job to either sign bills into law or veto them.  The President of course will sign his jobs bill into law, but the Republicans have zero intention of passing any jobs legislation that the President can sign.  Zero.

We've already established long ago that the GOP plan is to ignore the economy and blame Barack Obama for it.  And it's worked for them so far.  But this time with 63% of the country wanting to see the bill passed when they find out what's in it?  It's not going to work, and the GOP knows it.  They only want to compromise when they know they've lost.

Good for the President to take his case to the people.