President Obama is resuming his bus tour in North Carolina and Virginia to promote what remains of his jobs plan. He should point to his own campaign for some concrete examples of job creation. Obama's reelection campaign has spent almost $87 million so far, The New York Times' Nicholas Confessore and Griff Palmer report; that's equal to the spending of all the Republican candidates combined. More than 200 paid staffers work in the Chicago campaign office. Campaign manager Jim Messina emailed supporters last week that the campaign had doubled its staff, and that's why payroll totals $4 million, the Los Angeles Times' Melanie Mason reports. There are now Obama 2012 offices in 15 states, and paid staffers in 38 states.
Two of those states happen to be Virginia and North Carolina. As NBC News' First Read points out, if Obama holds on to either of those states, he can win reelection even if he loses Florida, Indiana, New Hampshire, and Ohio. And that's why Obama's two speeches in North Carolina, while technically meant to push for his jobs plan, are an attempt to rekindle the love the state had for him in 2008, NPR's Frank James writes. "I love Asheville ... In fact, I think I should be on the tourism promotion bureau of Asheville," Obama said Monday. As for jobs, he told the crowd, "We can't do nothing. Too many folks out there are hurting right now for us to do nothing."
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Elspeth Reeve
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