President Barack Obama hopes to raise cash and re-energize core supporters this week during a campaign swing to the West Coast.
Before returning to the White House midweek, the president is expected to raise as much as $8 million for his re-election campaign.
Along the way, Pres. Obama will talk about his $447 billion jobs bill, his plan combines tax cuts, unemployment benefits and public works spending. Republicans oppose the tax increases that would be used to pay for the plan. A vote in the Senate is expected in October.
The president left Washington, D.C. Sunday morning with a stop in Seattle before flying south for a rare Moffett Field landing. Among the people who greeted him on the tarmac was San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed.
The president spent the evening away from cameras at two pricey fundraisers at Silicon Valley elite. It's the president's second trip to the Bay Area this year and the sixth since taking office.
His evening started at a reception in Woodside hosted by former Symantec board chairman John W. Thompson. He closed his night with dinner at the home of Facebook COO Cheryl Sandberg in Atherton. The ticket to get in the Sandberg door is $35,800 per couple.
Monday morning, Mr. Obama will talk jobs in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Local
California's unemployment rate is at 12.1 percent, which is the highest of any state except Nevada.
The president will participate in a LinkedIn town hall forum at Mountain View's Computer History Museum Monday morning at 11 a.m. The president is scheduled to talk to LinkedIn employees and users about jobs, the economy and job creation. LinkedIn has also launched a forum where people can look for jobs and submit questions to the president to answer during the forum.
Following the jobs town hall, the president will be traveling to San Diego and Los Angeles, where he plans to attend two more fundraisers.
Obama's job approval rating dropped to 46 percent among Californians in a Field Poll this month. Among Democrats it was 69 percent, but that was down 10 percentage points from June.
"Californians voted for him by 24 points in 2008 and the Democrats and nonpartisans were the backbone of his support and he's losing some of that now,'' Mark DiCamillo, director of California's Field Poll, told the Associated Press. "I think there's a lot of frustration in California about Washington. They're looking for Obama to do something.''
His three-day trip ends in Denver on Tuesday.
