Crossroads GPS jumps into jobs debate

By Cameron Joseph - 09/21/11 10:50 AM ET

Crossroads GPS, a Republican-affiliated outside spending group, jumped into the debate over President Obama's jobs bill Tuesday, releasing a poll that showed a divided public and a web ad that indicated they will tie the relatively popular plan to the president, whose popularity has been in decline over the last few months.

Crossroads GPS and American Crossroads, its sister organization, spent heavily to frame the debt ceiling debate earlier this summer, and Steven Law, the president of both groups, suggested they will do so again on this issue.

While Crossroads officials insist they can win the policy debate on its own merits, they signalled that attacks against Obama could be more effective than going after the policies, a shift from previous debates when Obama remained more popular with the public than the ideas he was pushing.

"There seems to be a tectonic shift with the public’s attitude towards President Obama," said Crossroads president Steven Law. "During the debt limit debate… we found independents and soft Democrats were uncomfortable with his policies, unhappy with his performance but were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. What we may be seeing is the benefit of the doubt is starting to give away to real doubt."

According to the poll, conducted by Republican pollster Glenn Bolger's Public Opinion Stragies, 43 percent of likely voters support Obama's jobs plan while 42 percent oppose it. Obama's job approval rating is lower, with 43 percent approving of the job he's done and 53 percent disapproving.

The web ad does not take on Obama's jobs bill head on. Rather, it shows a clip of Obama saying that his plan to raise taxes on wealthy Americans to pay for the bill "is not class warfare -- it's math," and then runs through a litany of statistics hammering Obama's jobs record.

The poll showed that a narrow plurality of likely voters supported raising taxes on the rich even after both sides had been framed politically, and Law admitted that Obama's argument that the rich needed to pay more resonated with some voters, but that he thought his group could move the public's perception on the debate.

"The president has done a clever job of developing an urbane form of class warfare… that does have resonance with some segments of voters," he said. "It’s an issue that’s not static, it’s dynamic and needs to be litigated. I think we can litigate it successfully."

The poll of 800 likely voters was conducted from Sept. 17-19 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 percent.

The ad seeks to start framing the debate. Watch it here: