American Crossroads is saying “Don’t” believe President Barack Obama’s sales pitch as he goes on the road again with a three-day bus tour through North Carolina and Virginia to press for support of his jobs bill and other initiatives.
Crossroads, a group that Republican guru Karl Rove conceived, launched a new ad, titled "Don't," in the two states Sunday night as part of its continuing efforts to rebut Obama. This $80,000 ad buy is part of its campaign to spend $120 million to try to unseat Obama in the 2012 race.
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Although the White House bills this tour as an informational one, as it did a similar road trip recently in the Midwest, observers see a political motive in the itinerary through two key states for the president’s re-election efforts.
The ad, which features former President Bill Clinton decrying new tax increases, follows recent American Crossroads efforts in Missouri, Florida, and Pennsylvania to counter Obama’s campaign for his second round of stimulus.
"The president’s new jobs bill is based on the old ideas behind the first failed stimulus — only this time it’s tied to a massive tax hike," said American Crossroads communications director Jonathan Collegio. "Raising taxes on North Carolina and Virginia small businesses when the economy is weak is a proposal for further stagnation, not growth."
“When Obama sold his first stimulus bill in 2009, he projected that its passage would bring the unemployment rate down to 6.5 percent by the fall of 2011 – yet the rate is currently at 9.1 percent nationwide,” American Crossroads notes in a news release.
Obama’s tour through North Carolina and Virginia aims partly to restore his support in two southern states he wrested from Republican control when he won the White House, political observers say. His 2008 victories in the two states were largely because of their changing demographics and his campaign's ability to boost voter turnout among young people and blacks.
But the president's approval ratings in both states are sagging, in line with the national trend.
A Quinnipiac University poll this month put Obama's approval rating in Virginia at 45 percent, with 52 percent disapproving. The same poll showed that 83 percent of Virginians were dissatisfied with the direction of the country. In North Carolina, Obama has a 42 percent approval rating, according to an Elon University poll conducted this month. Most national polls put Obama's approval rating in the mid- to low-40s.
Obama starts his bus tour with a speech in Asheville, N.C., this morning, and with another speech later at a high school in Millers Creek, N.C. He is scheduled to speak Tuesday at a community college in Jamestown, N.C., and make stops in the southern Virginia cites of Emporia and Hampton, before wrapping up the bus tour Wednesday at a firehouse in North Chesterfield, Va.