While Not Campaigning in N.C., Obama Talks About 2012 Convention, Election

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama, on a bus trip the White House says is not part of his re-election campaign, is wooing voters in North Carolina and Virginia, two Republican-leaning states he won in 2008--and hopes to win again.

"Somebody asked me--we had a wonderful reporter come here, Dave Wagner from Charlotte, and he asked me, ‘Well, people tell me this is kind of a Republican area, so why would you come here instead of going to where there are a whole lot of Democrats?' Obama said Monday evening at West Wilkes High School in Miller Creek, N.C. "I said, look, this is an American Jobs Act. It's not the Democratic jobs act. It's not the Republican jobs act. It's the American Jobs Act."

The White House says Obama is making the three-day, taxpayer-funded trip to promote his jobs plan, which failed last week in the Democrat-led Senate. Obama is now pushing Democrats to pass the legislation piecemeal.