By MICHAEL FALCONE ( @michaelpfalcone ) and AMY WALTER ( @amyewalter )

The White House, which has been pumping out dozens of statements from elected officials in support of the jobs plan President Obama outlined during a joint session of Congress last night, appears particularly pleased with this one.

“The president proposed cutting payroll taxes for small businesses in half to encourage job growth … the president proposed ending loopholes for corporations,” Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder said in a statement. “These are changes that will help create an environment where jobs can grow, and they should be considered by Congress.”

It’s not an outright endorsement, but an early indication that President Obama might be able to find some allies on the other side of the aisle to back a plan, at least in part, that he promised last night would provide a much-needed “jolt to an economy that has stalled.”

“There’s a whole lot in here, George, that could actually get things moving,” Vice President Joe Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America” today. “There’s no ideological component to this. … There’s no excuse not to do it.” http://abcn.ws/rdOlL5

Obama proposed halving the payroll taxes paid by employers, and implementing a complete employer payroll tax holiday for new workers or higher wages. The president’s plan also calls for more than $140 billion in direct aid to states and more than $50 billion for the extension of unemployment insurance benefits and job training programs. The total $447 billion price tag would be “fully paid for” if enacted in its entirety, the White House says. http://abcn.ws/qTfI1I

While Obama didn’t advocate for the kind of big stimulus spending that many liberals would have liked to see, he did make an impassioned defense of government.

“[T]his larger notion that the only thing we can do to restore prosperity is just dismantle government, refund everyone’s money, let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they’re on their own — that’s not who we are,” Obama said.  “That’s not the story of America.”

But can the president shepherd the plan through a divided Congress?

“Sure, Republicans plucked a few of Barack Obama’s plans to applaud,” Politico’s Jonathan Allen and Elizabeth Titus note. “But the real meat of the $447 billion proposal will see more action on the campaign trail than in the Capitol … Republicans say there’s no chance of the whole bill making it to Obama’s desk.” http://politi.co/mZqMQZ

While the statements issued by the 2012 candidates on the president’s speech were universally critical, the comments by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker John Boehner were more conciliatory – a sign that the GOP leaders understand the negative toll debt ceiling debate took on their standing.

“The proposals the President outlined tonight merit consideration,” Boehner said.

There were plenty of times during last night’s speech when the President sounded like he was campaigning, ABC’s Political Director Amy Walter notes in her analysis Obama’s remarks. His calls for action on his proposal — sixteen times last night he called on Congress to “pass this bill” — also sounded a lot like something you’d hear at a campaign rally. http://abcn.ws/obT1bO

As ABC’s Devin Dwyer notes, today President Obama takes his jobs plan on the road to Virginia, a 2012 battleground and home GOP Leader Cantor. The president will deliver remarks at the University of Richmond, where he’s expected to appeal directly to his audience and the American people to have confidence in his ideas and heap pressure on lawmakers to pass them.  http://abcn.ws/qHRGqW

Democratic Super PAC Priorities USA convened a focus group of 32 swing voters in Richmond, Va. Last night, measuring their responses to the president’s speech. According to pollster Geoff Garin, “the speech was a home run, and succeeded on several important levels. Substantively, these swing voters liked the President’s proposals.  They came to the speech with deep concerns about the economic situation and came away from the speech persuaded and encouraged that Obama has good ideas for improving America’s economy. ”

 

On “Good Morning America” today, ABC’s Jake Tapper took a closer look the key points of President Obama’s plan to boost job creation. WATCH: http://abcn.ws/pPcYK1

 

WHAT THE 2012ers SAID:

RICK PERRY: “President Obama’s call for nearly a half-trillion dollars in more government stimulus when America has more than $14 trillion in debt is guided by his mistaken belief that we can spend our way to prosperity. Like the president’s earlier $800 billion stimulus program, this proposal offers little hope for millions of Americans who have lost jobs on his watch, and taxpayers who are rightly concerned that their children will inherit a mountain of debt.

JON HUNTSMAN: “The American people are tired of President Obama’s empty rhetoric and failed policies; they’re desperately searching for leadership and, above all, results. Tonight’s list of regurgitated half-measures demonstrates that President Obama fundamentally doesn’t understand how to turn our economy around.”

RICK SANTORUM: “The President’s speech tonight was more of the same failed policies and empty rhetoric that got him elected and got us in this mess. … His failed plan to spend over $400 billion more that we do not have, create further tax instability for workers and employers alike, and use federal tax dollars to prop up government is only made worse by the political theater we saw tonight.”

HERMAN CAIN: “We waited 30 months for this?”

THE NOTE’S BOTTOM LINE: “This battle over the proper role of government is one that defined the election of 2010 and will be central to the debate between President Obama and his GOP opponent in 2012,” Amy Walter notes. “We’ve heard many of the lines Obama used tonight in previous speeches. There’s little doubt we’ll hear much of what was in this address on the campaign trail and in debates in 2012.” http://abcn.ws/obT1bO

ON TODAY’S “TOP LINE. ABC’s Amy Walter and Jonthan Karl get reaction to President Obama’s jobs proposal from Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Ohio. Watch “Top Line” LIVE at 12:00 p.m. Eastern.  http://abcn.ws/toplineliveabc

 

THE BUZZ

THE BATTLE FOR NY-9. “With just days remaining before the special election on Tuesday to replace former Representative Anthony D. Weiner, the two major-party nominees on Thursday sought to trip each other up at their only widely televised debate, while national Democratic groups bought expensive television time in a last-ditch effort to buoy their candidate,” The New York Times’ Thomas Kaplan reports. “The Democrat, Assemblyman David I. Weprin, and his Republican opponent, Bob Turner, have debated each other almost daily in front of modest audiences in Brooklyn and Queens over the past week. At their televised forum, Mr. Turner urged voters to reject Mr. Weprin to send a message to President Obama that he needed to change his policies on Israel and federal spending, while Mr. Weprin appealed to elderly voters, promising to protect Social Security and Medicare. … A television advertisement from Mr. Weprin’s campaign trumpets his endorsement by The New York Times and seeks to tie Mr. Turner to the Tea Party movement. And two national Democratic groups have bought more than $500,000 in air time to broadcast their own ads for Mr. Weprin. (The National Republican Congressional Committee was considering whether to broadcast its own ads but had not decided on Thursday.) The national help to Mr. Weprin also caused him a bit of trouble on Thursday. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee posted online a television spot that criticized Mr. Turner and showed an airplane flying by the New York City skyline. When bloggers and others questioned the appropriateness of that image just days before Sept. 11, the organization tweaked the ad to remove the skyline image.”

NOTED: The House Majority PAC is launching what it describes as a six-figure paid advertising effort today against Robert Turner. The PAC’s television ad hitting Turner will run on cable and broadcast in New York City media starting Friday and running through Election Day. (The ad will not run on 9/11, according to the PAC.) “If Republicans are going to play footsies with the Tea Party, the House Majority PAC is going to stomp on their toes,” said Ali Lapp, Executive Director of the House Majority PAC. Watch the ad: http://via.lc/Hon7T

ABOUT THAT PONZI SCHEME…  A day after tangling with fellow Republicans at his first debate as a presidential candidate, Rick Perry pivoted back to attacking President Obama on Thursday, dismissing the economic address he delivered to a joint session of Congress as merely “promises” and “platitudes.” The Texas governor made the remarks in Orange County, a Republican enclave in a largely Democratic state, calling it, “a raspberry in a blueberry pie.” In baking Southern California heat, he spoke to several hundred people, many of whom held his campaign signs, at an outdoor garden supply store here. “Last night was pretty awesome,” Perry declared to cheers. Few in the crowd seemed to be concerned about Perry’s use of the term “Ponzi scheme” to describe Social Security despite the criticism he has been drawing even from other Republicans. (Perry did not use that phrase on Thursday.) In fact, some of his supporters appeared to be embracing “Ponzi scheme” as a rallying cry. Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson, a Perry backer, who spoke ahead of the governor, praised Perry’s use of “provocative language.” http://abcn.ws/pC0HbD

Picking Apart the ‘Ponzi Scheme’: Is Rick Perry Right? ABC’s Amy Bingham gets some perspective: “The critical thing that makes a Ponzi scheme despicable to me is the fraud, and Perry’s exaggerating a little bit if he’s implying that there is fraud,” said Harvard Law professor Mark Roe. While Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the conservative CATO Institute, told ABC News: “I think it’s more true than not,” “You rely on the next generation of taxpayers who will pay into the system to pay your benefits.” http://abcn.ws/oVINLt

@ MysteryPollster : My closer look at how Republican voters feel about Social Security huff.to/pjDRmS

JON HUNTSMAN 2.0 “Huntsman will be in New Hampshire Sept. 13th through the 16th. He’s skipping Iowa, so the Live Free or Die state is his make-or-break state,” writes ABC’s Shushannah Walshe. “His poll numbers are low—the last WMUR/University of New Hampshire poll was in July and had Huntsman’s support at two percent while Mitt Romney led with 35 percent. But the poll also indicated that more than 90 percent of the granite state’s likely Republican primary voters have not firmly made up their minds. Last week Huntsman attended the Saint Anselm Institute of Politics “Politics and Eggs” event and Neil Levesque, the director of the Institute, said it was successful and believes the needle is starting to move for the campaign. A source close to the campaign stresses they will make sure that—like Wednesday night—Huntsman talks about his record: job creation, health care, tax cuts, not to mention distinguishing himself from his rivals and lumping Romney and Perry together on the issues.” http://abcn.ws/nEXJRs

RNC DEFENDS KOCH. RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer hits back at President Obama’s campaign manager for a recent broadside against Koch Industries: “President Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina is “offended.”  He’s offended that successful businessmen, America’s job creators, disagree with the direction Obama has taken this country. In an email to campaign supporters, Messina whined about businessman Charles Koch’s recent comments at a private event in Colorado.  There, Koch explained that defeating Barack Obama must be a priority in 2012, and every job creator and unemployed American understands why: this President’s policies are not working.  The Koch family employs over 50,000 Americans.  Companies like theirs create jobs and hire American workers.  Our economic recovery depends on the ability of such businesses to hire the unemployed.  Yet the President and his allies would prefer to fire political attacks at them and punish them with regulations and job-killing taxes.” http://bit.ly/qLN568

 

WHO’S TWEETING?

@ sherwoodben : 8:46 am — Irrepressible  #Bill Ritter WABC en route 2 cover Bloomberg… Does Ritter evr rest?  yfrog.com/khpbzacj

@ JillDLawrence : #Obama on  #jobs: I am not a wimp. Is this new forceful tone permanent? My latest from  @theatlantic  bit.ly/oLZLdR  #leadingfromoutfront

@ markzbarabak : Breaking: San Diego Gas & Electric Co. says power restored to 100% of 1.4m customers who lost power Thurs

@ stevenportnoy : Heading to Shanksville today. The bravery of the Flight 93 heroes will always humble me. Was so privileged to speak with one’s mom this wk.

@ pwire : Haley Barbour teams up with Karl Rove to raise money for his Crossroads super PAC…  pwire.at/rrLsBH

 

POLITICAL RADAR: 

 

(all times local)

* Rick Perry attends fundraisers in Central and Northern California.

*  Herman Cain is the keynote speaker at the Coalition for Advancing Freedom in Oaks, Penn., at 3:30 p.m.

*  Newt Gingrich speaks at the Politics & Eggs presidential candidate speaker series in Goffstown, N.H. at 8 a.m. At 10:30 a.m., he meets with seniors at the Riverwoods Retirement Community in Exeter.

The Note Futures Calendar:  http://abcn.ws/ZI9gV

 

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