By Greta Fenzl and Keegan Gibson
Update: More Republicans piled on Obama before his visit today.
National conservative 527 American Crossroads, brainchild of GOP strategist Karl Rove, is airing a television ad in the Pittsburgh market critical of the President’s jobs plan.
Here’s the ad (h/t Early Returns):
Note: President Clinton has since said the ad is misleading, and endorsed the American Jobs Act.
The PA GOP emailed around an op-ed from Party Chairman Rob Gleason, in which he continues the RNC theme that Obama is blaming others for his shortcomings:
“On Tuesday, President Obama arrives in Pittsburgh to talk jobs. It’s just the latest stop in a cross-country campaign for his American Jobs Act,” Gleason writes. “For the last month, he’s been on the road attempting to blame others for his own failures. But the ironic truth is that he’s chiding the wrong party. He need not fly to Pennsylvania to target Republicans; he should stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue and have a talk with his fellow Democrats.”
End of update…
Ahead of Barack Obama’s visit to Pennsylvania today, the Republican National Committee released a memo regarding the jobs report from last week, and what they claim to be a clear indication that the President is failing to lead the country out of recession.
Obama will visit Pittsburgh this afternoon to tout his jobs plan. Stay tuned to PoliticsPA for coverage of the President’s speech.
Accusing the President of running to the campaign trail in Pennsylvania rather than deal with the issues at hand, the RNC blasted Obama’s American Jobs Act via its Democratic critics in Congress. The memo even includes a quote from Sen. Casey, who called for the Jobs Act to be broken into smaller pieces of legislation.
This line of attack follows previous RNC efforts to highlight the fact that much of PA’s congressional delegation doesn’t plan to attend the President’s speech today at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union headquarters.
“Friday’s jobs report is yet another reminder of how badly the President has failed to lead on the economy,” wrote RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer. “But instead of taking the chance to get serious about pro-growth policies, the President will travel to the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Florida this week to campaign for his re-election.”
Spicer pointed to recent polls of the Keystone State which have been unkind to Obama, including a 54 percent job disapproval rating in last month’s Quinnipiac.
The southwestern part of the state could be a major battleground in 2012, which may explain why Obama has visited frequently – as well as the reason that GOP presidential front runners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney are each planning events here this month.
The region looks competitive. Over the past year, Obama’s job approval numbers have taken a beating in the southwest.
In a June 2011 Quinnipiac survey, SWPA voters (which excludes Allegheny County) disapproved of the President’s job performance by a narrow margin – 48 to 51 percent. The latest Q-pac poll, from late September, shows Obama’s numbers in free fall: 26 to 68 percent disapproval in the region – his worst region in the state by far. His approval is five points higher in northwest PA and a full 10 points higher in central PA.
Over the same time period, Obama’s numbers in Allegheny County dropped from a positive 53 to 40 percent approval, into a slightly negative margin of 46 to 49 percent.