Texas Governor Rick Perry's made his first campaign visit to the Bay Area on Friday for a fundraising event at the Four Seasons hotel in Palo Alto. While the event was closed to reporters, ABC7 managed to catch up with Governor Perry as he was leaving for his next event in Fresno.
The front-running Republican in the race for the White House says Obama's jobs speech was just more of the same.
"The president is talking about continuing these borrowing programs to create temporary jobs at best," Perry said.
Before Obama's speech, Speaker of the House John Boehner said Americans didn't want to hear what the president had to say.
"And frankly, most of them would rather watch a football game," Boehner said.
According to Nielsen ratings, 31 million Americans watched the speech, and political analysts say Obama is daring congressional Republicans to vote against the jobs package at their peril.
"Either he gets their support for the stimulus package, or he gets some footage and prolonged arguments with Republicans that he can use in November," said ABC7 political analyst Prof. Bruce Cain, Ph.D.
Congressional republican leaders have responded by backing away from just saying no.
"The things we don't like are things we should set aside and begin to try to work on," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, "but again there is plenty of room for argument."
Perry's donors, who paid between $1,000 and $5,000 to hear him speak, were about evenly split on the president's speech.
"I have 10,000 members of my church," said Dick Bernal of the Jubilee Christian Center. "A lot of them need jobs."
"I thought it was like every other speech that he gives," said Thaddeus Taube of Taube Investments. "A lot of rhetoric and very little substance."
Perry did not hold back his opposition to the president's job plan, but he did moderate his Ponzi scheme condemnation of Social Security. On Friday, Perry said Social Security can be fixed.
"I think you can push back the age at which you get it," Perry said. "But don't tell our kids who are 30 years old and are out there working 'Keep paying into this system and it'll be there for you.'"
