This is what it looks like when President Obama goes into full-on campaign mode: the all-out effort to convince Congress (and thus the Republican House) to pass his jobs bill will involve another speech on Monday, complete with Rose Garden ceremony packed with veterans, firefighters, small business owners, and other unassailable icons of the American spirit, Politico's Jennifer Epstein reports. The White House has also said that they plan to deliver an actual bill to Congress this evening as well. This time Obama is not deferring to Republicans running for his job. His speech will coincide with the CNN GOP debate and it doesn't look like Obama will reschedule this time. The ceremony is part of Democrats' aggressive push to sell the proposal--they've also bought TV ads and set up a website, and Obama will be touring swing states to promote his plan in the backyards of Republican members of Congress. If you nerds out there want a jobs plan drinking game, take your shots at the line "Pass this bill," which Obama has said more than two dozen times in the past few days.
The Democratic National Committee has purchased a 30-second TV ad with urgent piano music playing under clips from Obama's jobs speech urging Congress not to wait until the next election to do something for the economy. It finishes with the text "Pass the President's Jobs Plan" in bold and will air in Denver, Tampa, Orlando, Des Moines, Las Vegas, Cleveland, Richmond, Charlotte, Raleigh, Manchester, and, of course, Washington, D.C., Politico reports. The ad tells viewers to visit the website setup for the bill, AmericanJobsAct.com. The site has sections explaining how the plan benefits women, Latinos, African-Americans, and low-income families, and highlights tax cuts for small businesses and how the plan is "Fully Paid For." On Tuesday, Obama will head to Columbus, Ohio, to tour a school that would get spruced up by the infrastructure spending measures in the bill. Wednesday he hits the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina. Obama told NBC News's Brian Williams that his plan "buys us insurance against a double-dip recession."
Republicans are worried Americans might believe it. The Hill's Russell Berman and Bernie Becker report that Republicans are nervous that their pitch--that cutting back regulations creates a better environment for the private sector to create jobs--"is a more complicated argument than the one voters typically hear from Democrats," the Hill reports. The six-month battle over budgets and spending was tied to growing the economy, Republicans say, but "I don't know that we ever drew that connection well enough," a Republican aide told The Hill.
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Elspeth Reeve
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