Obama: 'If you love me, you've got to help me pass this bill'
Obama promoted his jobs bill in North Carolina on Wednesday, the third stop on what White House press secretary Jay Carney has called a "campaign" for jobs.
Not for the first time, Obama called back to an audience member who shouted "I love you" with "I love you back."
On Wednesday he added, "But if you love me you've got to help me pass this bill."
The Obama administration isn't holding back in its full-court campaign to pass the American Jobs Act. Obama's speech at North Carolina State University in Raleigh is his third stop, following similar speeches in Virginia and Ohio, and the WhiteHouse.gov website now includes a banner that links to the bill.
Obama used a copy of the America's Jobs Act as a prop, as he's done before, holding it up as he assigned "homework" to a crowd composed largely of college students, urging them to contact Congress and push them to pass his bill.
"Yes, we can," he said, a return to his 2008 campaign slogan that brought loud cheers from the audience. Obama added, "We can pass this thing but we need Congress to do it."
Obama blasted Republicans in Congress, qualifying "not all Republicans; there are some who get it," for resisting supporting the bill because they are afraid of handing a "win" to Obama.
"Give me a win? Give me a break," Obama said.
"I get fed up with that kind of game playing and we've been seeing it for too long," he said. "We've been grappling with a crisis for three years. Instead of getting people to rise up against bipartisanship in the spirit of working together, we've got people who are purposely dividing."
