'The time to create jobs is now,' Obama said on Friday at the University of Richmond. Obama stands ground on jobs tour

President Barack Obama preaches compromise, but he’s never promised to use nonpartisan means to achieve his bipartisan ends — and he will hit the road this fall to lash Republicans into civilized cooperation.

The first stop on Obama’s jobs-or-bust road tour on Friday took him barely outside the Beltway, to Richmond, within shouting distance of Washington Republicans. He descended into the district of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, his sharpest congressional critic, who lost no time in reasserting himself and his party in his own speech just 10 miles away.


Obama’s twin goals in Richmond and elsewhere: Convince Republicans he’s not only relevant, but still a dangerous political enemy, while selling the jaded Democratic base on his progressive credentials and political toughness.

“I want you to call, I want you to email, I want you to tweet, I want you to fax, I want you to visit, I want you to Facebook, send a carrier pigeon,” Obama shouted to an adoring crowd of 9,000 at the University of Richmond in Cantor’s district, echoing lines he used during the debt ceiling debate that prompted a flood of responses to congressional switchboards and in-boxes.

“I want you to tell your congressperson, the time for gridlock and games is over. The time for action is now. The time to create jobs is now,” Obama said.

The congressman, for those keeping score at home, was Cantor. The Virginia conservative, and frequent Obama sparring partner, appeared Friday in Henrico, a suburb north of the state capital, to make his counter-pitch.

“Since he was in Richmond, perhaps [he’s pressuring] particularly one individual,” Cantor deadpanned, to laughter and a little applause.

“I would say this, I’ve already said there are plenty of areas I think that have room for agreement. But I object to the all or nothing message that the president is delivering. That’s not how anybody operates. No two people usually agree on anything 100 percent. I know, my wife and I, married almost 22 years, don’t agree on everything 100 percent. … So my response to the president is, ‘Is he going to work with us?’”

Cantor, along with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), wrote to the president Friday, saying they appreciated the bipartisan call to arms — but had no intention of being bullied into accepting every piece of the package.

“We share your desire for bipartisan cooperation, and assume that your ideas were not presented as an all-or-nothing proposition, but rather in anticipation that the Congress may also have equally as effective proposals to offer for consideration,” the leaders wrote.

Obama allies were quick to note the irony of Cantor, who pulled out of deficit talks with Vice President Joe Biden this summer, lecturing Obama on the finer points of compromise. House Republicans, on the other hand, say they have switched their tactics after a bruising debt ceiling debate. They see a floundering national economy and think they can work with Obama on a few areas of commonality, while spurning him on the rest.

The president will take a short break from his jobs pitch to travel to New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon this weekend for Sept. 11 memorial ceremonies. After spending Monday in Washington, he’ll restart his road trip, heading to Columbus, Ohio — in Boehner’s home state — and onto Raleigh-Durham, N.C., a day later.

Other visits are in the pipeline, most likely to more swing states, including Colorado, his staff said.

Prominent Obama critic Erick Erickson, a RedState.com and CNN contributor, says Obama just might batter Republicans into bipartisan submission and still lose the larger battles of righting the economy and winning in 2012.

“Obama has largely proposed a plan key portions of which can pass with bipartisan support. And they will pass with bipartisan support. And there will be a grand bipartisan signing ceremony. Lots of pictures will be taken,” he wrote hours after the president delivered a fiery, double-speed address on employment in the House chamber.

“No jobs will actually be created. The recession will double dip. But Barack Obama will have gotten his bipartisan jobs plan. So he will not be able to blame the GOP. He’ll have to blame mother nature again.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, gave Obama a bit more credit for the jobs plan, estimating it would likely add 1.9 million jobs, United Press International reported on Friday.

But Republicans were generally quick to dismiss the president’s proposal as another stimulus bill that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars but yield little. “Stimulus spending didn’t work the last time,” Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said on MSNBC. “I don’t think it’s going to work this time.”

He echoed congressional Republican leaders, though, in saying there could be some areas of agreement. “I’m sure there are some things … both parties can agree to. And I think that’s the common ground that we are looking for,” he said, pointing to the extension of the payroll tax cut and the resolution of trade agreements.

“The reality is that we’re facing a monstrosity of a problem, and what the president is doing is playing with Chinese checkers here. And we have a major problem in this country that is going to require major ideas and reforms to get our economy back on.”

Democrats were pleased to see their party’s leader, who has adopted the cause of deficit reduction since the devastating November 2012 midterms, back on the offensive.

“Where was this guy nine months ago?” asked a top Democratic operative, who suspected Obama wants to buck up the Democratic base ahead of an unpalatable supercommittee compromise that will likely include entitlement cuts and “pay-for” reductions to other programs.

But for a day, anyway, liberals seemed to be on board, including New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a one-man progressive Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

“[I]t’s much bolder and better than I expected. President Obama’s hair may not be on fire, but it’s definitely smoking; clearly and gratifyingly, he does grasp how desperate the jobs situation is,” Krugman wrote.

“I think it’s pretty big. He went beyond what I expected,” supercommittee member Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Friday. “He seems to have tossed a lot of that into the laps of those of us who sit on the joint select committee, but we had already begun to think beyond the $1.5 trillion that we were instructed to come back with. So getting up to near $2 trillion wouldn’t be all that uncomfortable for us because most of us on the committee wanted to go big anyway.”

The White House press office has been eager to share statements of support with reporters, emailing dozens beginning just after the president finished speaking. Some came from the usual suspects — the Center for American Progress, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), labor unions — but one in the barrage was unexpected, a lukewarm statement from Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican.

First, the White House said in its subject line that Snyder “backs” the president’s plan, but sent a corrected version of that line 45 minutes later: “Michigan Governor Rick Snyder on the American Jobs Act.” The statement itself drew parallels between Michigan’s policies and Obama’s proposals, and urged action from Washington.

Cantor and Boehner are more ambivalent, but say they are open to some of the proposed tax cuts and small business programs. Two hours after Obama left town, Cantor appeared at a cement mixing facility near Richmond’s airport to say how “excited” he was that Obama chose his district for the “first place for his jobs tour after his speech.”

“I said to him, I hope that he hears the same kind of concerns that I hear every time I come home in that people want to see results in this country, they want to see America get back to work,” Cantor said.

While Obama picked an exclusive private university for his backdrop, Cantor chose two cement trucks, a towering mixing facility owned by Titan America and a theme of cutting government regulation.

“What we have said as Republicans in the House majority is that we want to join together with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and we want to begin to make it easier for operations like this to succeed,” Cantor told the group.

One item Obama is pushing for is an extension of the payroll tax cut. Cantor sounded optimistic about supporting the measure but indicated it might have to come alongside measures the GOP wants.

“Republicans are never for allowing folks – or forcing them – to pay higher taxes,” Cantor said. “We believe the government should be able to operate within its means, and to fix the system before it asks people for more money. So in that regard, I would say we supported that provision. … But we also need to be focused on jobs and incentives for business to create jobs. That payroll tax for the employee doesn’t necessarily fall into that category. It does fall into the category of working people having some relief.”

Virginia’s Seventh District is red country. But a road two miles from this mixing plant was fixed by the stimulus Republicans love to hate.

Ritchie Faltz, a 52-year-old truck driver for Titan whose rig sat directly behind Cantor, volunteered to come hear Cantor speak. He doesn’t support Cantor — he doesn’t even live in the district — but agrees with him on a host of issues. He wants regulations cut, so the company he works for can thrive.

But Faltz, who drives a limousine on the weekends, also wants to see a load of spending on infrastructure.

He was skeptical of it all.

“If they couldn’t get together on the debt ceiling, how can they help us get going again?” Faltz asked. “Do they even see us?”

Sherman reported from Henrico, Va. Thrush reported from Washington. Jennifer Epstein contributed to this report.