CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- As Republicans gather in Charlotte to take stock of their party's brand this week, one of their potential standard-bearers is advising them to turn their attention away from an "obsession with government bookkeeping" in Washington D.C.

"Today’s conservatism is completely wrapped up in solving the hideous mess that is the federal budget, the burgeoning deficits, the mammoth federal debt, the shortfall in our entitlement programs,"  Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will say at tonight's keynote dinner at the Republican National Committee's Winter Meeting, according to an advance copy of remarks obtained by NBC News.

"We as Republicans have to accept that government number crunching – even conservative number crunching – is not the answer to our nation’s problems,” he will say.

Recommended: Hillary's honeymoon with GOP ends

Jindal, frequently discussed as a possible 2016 presidential nominee for the GOP, will make the argument that Republican concern about constraining a bulging federal government -- signified to their base by President Barack Obama -- misses the point of growing the economy outside the Beltway.

"The Republican Party must become the party of growth, the party of a prosperous future that is based in our economic growth and opportunity that is based in every community in this great country and that is not based in Washington, DC," he will say.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana addresses activists from America's political right at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in this file photo.

The Louisiana governor's remarks come as Republicans in Congress have been struggling to out-manuever Obama on tactical measures related to spending, taxes and the debt ceiling. While the party has extracted some concessions from the White House as a result of the wrangling, consultants and elected officials alike fret that a focus on fighting the president looks more like stubborn obstruction than conservative valor to a weary public.

Jindal -- who is Indian-American, Catholic and just 41 years old -- has gained national fame in part by defying stereotypes about how a southern Republican governor looks and sounds. The party's efforts to expand its appeal beyond white men and the south top the Charlotte agenda.

Jindal is expected to speak tonight at around 7 p.m. ET. 

The economy remains the top issue for voters, and a new set of data released Friday paints a picture of an uneven economic recovery in a series of battleground states.

Of the nine states categorized as "battleground states" by NBC News, five had state unemployment rates below the national unemployment rate of 7.8 percent in September, according to preliminary estimates released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The other four states suffered from a higher-than-average jobless rates, the highest of which was in Nevada; the BLS said that 11.8 percent of Nevadans were unemployed through September, the highest unemployment rate of all 50 states. (One U.S. territory, Puerto Rico, had a higher jobless rate.)

Friday's news is the last series of state-level unemployement data voters will receive before Election Day. One last national jobs report is due Nov. 2, the Friday before voters head to the polls.

President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney have each made jobs the centerpiece of their respective campaigns. The president got a boost earlier this month when the BLS report showed the unemployment rate dropping below 8 percent for the first time in years, disarming Romney of one of his most potent cudgels versus the president.

But as each Obama and Romney travel the country over the next 18 days looking to secure the 270 electoral votes they need to win the White House, economic optimism might be brighter in some states and still dim in others.

The five states with unemployment rates below 7.8 percent included Iowa (5.2 percent), New Hampshire (5.7 percent), Ohio (7.0 percent), Virginia (5.9 percent) and Wisconsin (7.3 percent).

The four battleground states with unemployment rates above the national average are Colorado (8.0 percent), Florida (8.7 percent), Nevada and North Carolina (9.6 percent).

If, for purposes of speculation, Obama were to win the battleground states with jobless rates beneath 7.8 percent along with all of the other states considered more safely in his column, he would win the Electoral College, 288-250.

But politics, of course, are not that simple. For instance, the number of employees on nonfarm payrolls in Ohio actually decreased between August and September, though the unemployment rate dropped from 7.2 percent to 7 percent over the same period.

But as Obama argues that the economy is moving forward and Romney asserts that the recovery has not been sufficiently robust, it's helpful to remember how those arguments might sound different to voters in differing states.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – President Barack Obama will ask voters for another four years in office tonight, arguing that he needs more time in order to fully address some of the nation’s deepest-rooted problems.

 “I won’t pretend the path I’m offering is quick or easy. I never have. You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear,” Obama will say tonight at the Democratic National Convention, according to excerpts released by his campaign.

“You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades,” he will add.

Related: Obama faces another defining convention speech

The president’s pitch seems, in part, to acknowledge voters’ disappointment that the “change” Obama had promised to bring about during his 2008 campaign had come slowly, something the president himself often notes on the campaign trail.

But as Republicans continue to argue this week that voters today are no better off than when Obama took office, Obama will lay out elements of a second-term agenda he would seek if re-elected.

Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

Among Obama’s promises would be a $4 trillion reduction in the deficit over the next decade, and creating 1 million new manufacturing jobs by the end of his second term. Obama will also call for halving net oil imports by 2020 and cutting the growth rate of college tuition in half over the next 10 years, too.

It’s not clear whether Obama will offer much detail as to how he might accomplish these proposals, especially since tonight’s speech is essentially a political one. The preview offered by his campaign says, though, that savings associated with ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be re-invested in the economy.

“But know this, America: Our problems can be solved. Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And I’m asking you to choose that future,” Obama will say. “That’s what we can do in the next four years, and that’s why I’m running for a second term as president of the United States.”

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO –- Paul Ryan wasted no time on Thursday in attacking President Barack Obama and the Democrats on the final day of the Democratic National Convention.

“The president is going to be in Charlotte tonight with the Democratic convention. Their convention actually began with a tribute to big government. They actually said government is the only thing we all belong to,” Ryan told the crowd. “Then, they cut references to God out of their platform. They reversed course on that one yesterday – it wasn’t really a popular reversal if you watched it on TV.”

Continuing inside an airplane hangar: “But to quote a popular journalist from Wisconsin, ‘they were against God before they were for him.’” [The journalist, POLITICO’s Jim VandeHei, made the comments on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Thursday morning.] 

Related: Romney back on air

Speaking in the Centennial State – where four years ago, Obama officially accepted the Democratic Party's presidential nomination – the Republican vice presidential candidate said the president hasn’t lived up to his promises and has made the economy worse.

“You know, right here in Colorado, four years ago with the Styrofoam Greek columns, the big stadium, the president gave this long speech with lots of big promises,” Ryan said speaking inside WestPac Restorations. “And he said, let me quote ‘if you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.’ You know what, that is what he said four years ago and that is exactly what he is doing today. He has no record to run on.”

The attacks are coming from both sides.

Recommended: Bill Clinton steps up to lay out the case for Obama, Democrats 

Wednesday night, former President Bill Clinton spoke at the convention in Charlotte, NC and did not hold back on attacking the Romney-Ryan ticket.

“When Congressman Ryan looked into that TV camera and attacked President Obama's Medicare savings 'the biggest, coldest power play,' I didn't know whether to laugh or cry,” Clinton said. “Because that $716 billion is exactly to the dollar the same amount of Medicare savings that he had in his own budget! You got to admit one thing, it takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.”

Congressman Ryan, who in Iowa on Wednesday morning praised Clinton for working with Republicans while in office, made no reference to the remarks made at the convention last night by the 42nd president.

Video: Wednesday night's DNC speeches

The House Budget Committee Chairman, however, did acknowledge he may have finally found one thing to agree on with current Vice President Joe Biden.

“You know it was just reported that in the middle of President Obama’s debt ceiling negotiations last summer Vice President Biden said quote, ‘You know if I were doing this I’d do it totally different,’” Ryan told the nearly 3,000 people here in Colorado about the upcoming Bob Woodward book, "The Price of Politics."

"Sounds like Joe and I finally agree on something," the congressman deadpanned.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- For months, Michelle Obama has stood behind podiums at fundraisers and rallies, delivering many of the same lines she offered last night.

Famously disciplined and often relating her stump speech nearly line-for-line several times in a day, many of the first lady's biographical stories are well-worn to those who have followed her on the road: her father's pride in paying his bills on time, her husband's frustration at the glass ceiling that loomed above his grandmother, the president's late nights agonizing over the letters from Americans in trouble. 

But in front of a national audience and an adoring crowd, new imagery used by the first lady last night - and an implicit plea to voters to remain "in love" with the man they chose four years ago -- offered a personal and deeply emotive pitch that veiled some of her stories' unmistakable contrasts between her husband's personal history and that of the man who wants to replace him. 

PhotoBlog: See a 360-degree view of Michelle Obama speaking at the DNC

"We learned about dignity and decency - that how hard you work matters more than how much you make," she told the convention crowd, nudging against the narrative of Mitt Romney's wealth as a measure of his fitness to run the American economy. "Success doesn't count unless you earn it fair and square." 

Adding to typical references like the student loans that mired the Obamas as a young couple, Mrs. Obama added that her young beau's "proudest possession was a coffee table he'd found in a dumpster," hinting perhaps at an oblique response to Ann Romney's description of the ironing board that served as a dining room table for the newly married Romneys. 

Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

David Goldman / AP

First lady Michelle Obama waves after delivering remarks to the Democratic National Convention.

Launch slideshow

"Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it," she said, repeating an old staple of her stump speech that - if delivered with a hint of indignance  - could draw a direct line to the implication that Mitt Romney has not.  

But Mrs. Obama's almost prayerful tone at times eliminated the possible sting that her pitch could hold for independent voters. And previously unrecited details, like her husband's obsessive monitoring of her infant daughters' cribs, personalized a man frequently tagged as "aloof." 

While much of the first lady's material was familiar, some language - particularly on the issues of abortion rights and gay marriage - was notably more direct than words she typically offers to audiences in Pueblo and Raleigh and Richmond. 

VIDEO: Tuesday night's DNC speeches

For example, Mrs. Obama extolled the bravery of "proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love."  (She usually praises the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy but steers clear of words like "altar.") 

And she won roars of approval in the debate hall for saying bluntly that "women are more than capable of making our own choices about our bodies and our health care." 

Like her Republican counterpart Ann Romney, Mrs. Obama uttered the word "love" often -- a total of 15 times in her remarks. 

Ultimately, the challenge for the popular first lady will be to convince disenchanted voters that they would consider agreeing with one central sentence in her speech: "I didn't think it was possible" she said of her husband, "but today I love [him] even more than I did four years ago." 

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – First lady Michelle Obama said her husband remains anchored by the same values he brought to the White House nearly four years ago, on a night devoted as much to tearing down Republican nominee Mitt Romney, as building up President Barack Obama and his record.

Democrats’ message on Tuesday, the first day of the Democratic National Convention, was two-pronged and crystal clear. The evening’s speeches both sought to extol the president’s accomplishments and cast him as empathetic, while at the same time looking to deconstruct Romney and cast him as an impossibly worse choice for president.

Slideshow: The Democratic National Convention

The evening’s top-billed speakers embodied the dual purposes of Tuesday’s programming.  Michelle Obama said her husband was the “same man” he was before the White House, in a speech designed to put a softer edge on the  president’s case for re-election. And keynote speaker Julian Castro said Romney would diminish opportunities for voters if elected, in a speech that also weaved in the personal story of the San Antonio mayor, whom party leaders regard as a rising star.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

First lady Michelle Obama speaks on stage during day one of the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena on September 4, 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

VIDEO: Tuesday night's DNC speeches

"I have seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are – no, it reveals who you are," Michelle Obama said in her prime-time speech. "So in the end, for Barack, these issues aren’t political – they’re personal. Because Barack knows what it means when a family struggles ... Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it."

And the first lady brought the crowd to their feet in closing: "I know from experience that if I truly want to leave a better world for my daughters, and all our sons and daughters ... then we must work like never before, and we must once again come together and stand together for the man we can trust to keep moving this great country forward…my husband, our president, President Barack Obama."

Mrs. Obama's speech capped hours’ worth of speeches in Charlotte, but stood in contrast against most of the day’s earlier speakers, many of whom offered sharp criticism of Romney. So strong were the attacks on the Republican nominee, that it seemed as though many of the efforts to build up Obama were secondary to disparaging Romney.

PhotoBlog: See a 360-degree view of Michelle Obama speaking at the DNC

A spokeswoman for the GOP presidential nominee, Andrea Saul, said late Tueseday evening in response: "On the first night of President Obama’s convention, not a single speaker uttered the words ‘Americans are better off than they were four years ago.’ Instead, there was a night full of tributes to government as the solution to every problem, even going as far as to say that ‘government is the only thing that we all belong to."

Though much of his speech focused on overcoming the difficulties associated with being a poor Latino in Texas as a child, the middle of Castro’s speech took aim at Romney in a way that was similar to those addresses.

"Republicans tell us that if the most prosperous among us do even better, that somehow the rest of us will too. Folks, we’ve heard that before. First they called it 'trickle-down.' Then they called it 'supply-side.' Now it’s 'Romney-Ryan.' Or is it 'Ryan-Romney'?" Castro said. "Either way, their theory's been tested. It failed. Our economy failed. The middle class paid the price. Your family paid the price. Mitt Romney just doesn’t get it.”

As if to clarify the evening's theme, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said: "We understand that progress is a choice. Job creation is a choice. Whether we move forward or back, this too is a choice. And that is what this election is all about."

Other attacks on Romney sought to exploit Obama’s current advantages over his Republican opponents among women and Latinos, two crucial voting blocs which could sway the outcome of the election.

Texas Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said Romney had “embraced the racial profiling policies of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Sheriff Joe Arpaio” by way of praising Arizona’s controversial immigration law as a “model.”

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has clashed publicly with the Bain Capital co-founder by contending that there were years in which Romney paid no taxes, excoriated the GOP nominee as opaque and undeserving of trust.

(Reid's charge prompted a response from Romney spokesman Ryan Williams: "Harry Reid has once again shown that he is completely detached from reality. Senator Reid’s comments tonight are absolutely false and are another attempt to distract from President Obama’s abysmal economic record.")

Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

David Goldman / AP

Democrats gather in Charlotte, N.C., to officially nominate President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as the party's candidates for the 2012 presidential election.

Launch slideshow

The tone of the first night of the Democratic convention seemed more aggressively negative toward Romney than much of the Republican-led criticism of Obama last week in Tampa. It was an emphasis in keeping with Democrats’ effort to turn the election into a choice – in which they try to make Romney seem like a worse pick than Romney – rather than a referendum on Obama’s record after almost four years in office.

The first day of the Democratic convention was also an exercise in energizing the party’s core constituencies. Among the speakers on Tuesday were the leaders of the AFL-CIO and SEIU, two of the nation’s largest labor groups, the president of the pro-abortion rights group NARAL, and speakers like openly gay Colorado Rep. Jared Polis, who praised Obama’s actions to expand gay rights.

Those strides toward building up Obama were certainly part of the programming on Tuesday night, and the achievements most frequently emphasized included the president’s signature health care overhaul law and the bailout of the auto industry in particular.

“Facts are facts: No president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Great Depression inherited a worse economy, bigger job losses or deeper problems from his predecessor,” said O’Malley, the first prime-time speaker of the evening. “But President Obama is moving America forward, not back.”

On Wednesday, Democrats will formally name Obama their candidate re-election after a highly-anticipated nominating speech by former President Bill Clinton.

Obama himself will travel to Charlotte on Wednesday, joining Vice President Joe Biden who made it to the convention city this afternoon. Both men will speak outdoors on Thursday at Charlotte’s Bank of America stadium, the home of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers and a potentially raucous atmosphere the president’s campaign hopes will recapture the imagery of Obama’s 2008 outdoor acceptance speech in Denver.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The stage for the Democratic National Convention is an elaborate display of lights, carpeting and video screens. It’s worthy of a Las Vegas show. In fact, unionized workers from Vegas were “imported” to build the stage, according to delegate Dick Collins, who hails from Sin City.

“Most of the trade unions are boycotting this, because it’s held in a non-union town,” Collins proudly said. It’s also the least unionized state in the U.S. -- less than 3%, especially since state law forbids government workers from organizing.

North Carolina’s right-to-work status has been a sore spot with unions. The building trades held their own political rally recently in Philadelphia. Local leaders quietly talked about not being motivated for the president and those down-ticket.

So into the discontent, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka stepped Tuesday morning, meeting with several hundred labor leaders who are also delegates. He got a raucous welcome. The organization chose a hotel close to the  Time-Warner Cable Arena. It didn’t matter, since no hotels are unionized in Charlotte.

“And the labor movement may be small here, but I could tell you that it truly does punch above its own weight,” Trumka said trying to mollify any holdover anger. He urged members to keep the greater goal in sight. “We have a chance to stand with leaders who champion working families.”

Besides, he suggests, labor’s presence might spark some movement on that front in North Carolina, and maybe the south in general.
Collins, a retiree from labor organizing in Buffalo who moved to Vegas, breathes a heavy sigh when asked about such speculation. “I hope he’s right. I hope he’s right.”

He’d rather be anywhere else. “Not only is it a non-union town; it’s a staunch anti-union town, which makes it even worse." 

Collins concluded, “They have so many ignorant people here that they don’t understand the goodness of unions."

But Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is not just for unions. Mark Mix of the National Right to Work Committee issued a video statement marking the holiday as a pre-emptive strike on the Democrats’ convention. 

“Union officials are mounting a billion-dollar campaign to reelect President Barack Obama; and elect more pro-forced-unionism allies in Congress,” Mix says into the camera.

He claimed, “The National Right to Work Committee is mobilizing its 2.6 million members to call on candidates to support greater workplace freedoms.” They do politics, too.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The choice of location for any political convention speaks volumes about election-year strategy, and the goal for Democrats in choosing North Carolina was, put simply, to stay on offense – expanding President Barack Obama’s path to a second term and building a permanent foothold in a southern state.

The battleground for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House in November encompasses a number of states but, for Obama, winning here in November might mean putting the presidency out of reach for Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

“If Romney doesn't win North Carolina, he's not going to be the president,” said Dallas Woodhouse, the state director for Americans for Prosperity, the economically conservative group associated with billionaire brothers, David and Charles Koch.

The president won the Tar Heel State in 2008, making him the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry North Carolina since Jimmy Carter in 1976. But Obama only won by 14,000 votes – a relatively thin margin out of 2.2 million total ballots cast – stressing the extent to which North Carolina still seems like more natural turf for Republicans in a presidential election.

Related -- First Thoughts: Feeling good

The 2008 election saw unprecedented voter turnout among African-Americans and students in the state’s “Research Triangle,” a geographic cluster in the northern part of North Carolina, anchored by several major universities. Part of the question in 2012 is whether Obama can recapture the enthusiasm of four years ago.

“We know that it’s going to be close, and it was last time,” said an Obama campaign official in North Carolina, who asked to speak on background in order to offer a better assessment of the race.

The most recent polling showed the race here close, with Romney holding a four-point lead in the latest Elon University/Charlotte Observer poll published Monday.

As with Romney last week in Tampa, where Republicans had hoped their convention would have a pronounced and positive effect on voters in Florida, Democrats are looking to leave Charlotte in better shape for the fall.

Making matters more difficult for Obama are troubles within the state's Democratic Party. Allegations of sexual harassment against a state party official, a struggling economy, and Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue’s somewhat surprising decision against seeking a second term are among the factors that worsen matters for Democrats here. But Perdue was also far from popular, and her decision against seeking a second term arguably cleaned the slate for state Democrats.

“Voters are voting on the president and his record and Mitt Romney and his lack of a record,” the Obama official argued. “So the state party has had no impact on our organization.”

This state is nonetheless battleground turf. North Carolina is among the nine “toss up” states on the NBC News battleground map. The state ranks fourth in total ad spending, according to NBC’s ad-tracking sources, underscoring how competitive the battle for this state’s 15 electoral votes has become.

The Obama campaign and its supporters have spent $22 million in North Carolina so far this cycle, versus $34 million by the Romney campaign and outside groups and super PACs who back the Republican presidential candidate.

That number is only likely to grow thanks to additional advertising dollars being sent into the state to turn voters out to the polls, not just on Election Day, but during early voting periods, as well.

The turnout operation is especially important given the need for Obama to replicate the voter numbers that helped put him over the top in 2008.

“He had a level of excitement that was unprecedented, and I don't see it this time,” said Woodhouse. “When you only win by 14,000 votes, it only takes a small loss of enthusiasm for things to go the other way.”

Recommended -- Poll: Romney's convention speech gets low marks

Putting the Democratic National Convention here in Charlotte is, in no small part, an effort to recapture and harness those passions from 2008, especially in North Carolina. George W. Bush actually won Mecklenburg County – home to Charlotte – in 2000, and Republicans won the Raleigh area from 1996 through 2004. Obama won those areas decisively in 2008, and he drove up his numbers with good turnout in Fayetteville and surrounding areas to the south.

The Obama campaign boasts of having an organizational advantage associated with keeping an "Organizing for America" office open in North Carolina for the span of the president’s first term, and they claim to have gotten a good response to a volunteering initiative that distributed tickets to the president’s speech on the final night of the convention.

And convention organizers are hopeful that they can use this week’s festivities – including Monday’s “Carolinafest,” an event open to the public featuring entertainers like James Taylor, and Thursday’s stadium acceptance speech by Obama – to both recruit volunteers and win over voters.

Mladen Antonov / AFP - Getty Images

Paintings of President Barack Obama are for sale at a street fair in Charlotte, North Carolina, September 3, 2012.

One convention planner argued that history shows a mixed record for candidates and the site of their conventions; the Obama team believes how they use their convention is just as important as where they place it.

"Where you plop down your convention really doesn't matter, unless you use it wisely,” said the convention planner.

Winning North Carolina – or even staying competitive here – would bode well for the president’s bid for a second term. Obama doesn’t need to win the state, and has plenty of other paths to victory without it. Romney’s math, his ability to secure the 270 necessary electoral votes to win the White House, would be far more difficult without North Carolina. The mere fact that North Carolina is even in the list of competitive states demonstrates the advantages Obama has and the hurdles Romney faces.

Moreover, if Obama is even threatening victory here by Election Day, it will have meant that Romney was forced to spend resources on winning a state President George W. Bush won easily in 2004 despite then-North Carolina Sen. John Edwards being on the Democratic ticket.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan admitted Wednesday that he told Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) to end his bid for the U.S. Senate, and noted he is “comfortable” with presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s stance on abortion.

Akin “should have dropped out of the race,” Ryan told reporters on his campaign plane while flying from Virginia to North Carolina. “But he is not, he is going to run his campaign and we are going to run ours.”

The single phone call between Ryan and Akin, according to the Wisconsin congressman, went how “you would imagine.” There are no additional plans to speak with Akin going forward in order to convince the Missouri congressman to reconsider continuing his bid to replace current Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO).

Ryan, who co-sponsored anti-abortion legislation with Akin, said he is proud of his opposition to abortion rights, and brushed off the vote as a bi-partisan measure. The House Budget Chairman is on board with Romney's position on abortion rights moving forward.

Related: Ryan on Akin: 'Rape is rape'

"Look I'm proud of my record," Ryan said. “Mitt Romney is going to be president and the president sets policy. His policy is exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. I'm comfortable with it because it's a good step in the right direction."

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign criticized this switch on Ryan’s beliefs.

“As a Republican leader in the House, Paul Ryan worked with Todd Akin to try to narrow the definition of rape and outlaw abortion even for rape victims. He may hope that American women never learn about this record, but they deserve an answer to why he wanted to redefine rape and remove protections for rape victims,” campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith wrote in a statement.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Appearing in swing state North Carolina, Vice President Joe Biden blasted congressional Republicans Wednesday for obstructing the president's attempts to jump-start job creation, promising the administration will use all constitutional tactics to bypass the gridlock. 

"We will use every power that is legally under our constitutional capacity to act when the Congress will not," Biden told a supportive crowd of about 600 at Wake Forest BioTech Place in Winston-Salem. "But understand our Republican friends in Congress are just as determined to not act." 

Carolyn Kaster / AP

Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a roundtable with college presidents and education system leaders June 5 in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington.

Saying that job gains so far still are "not enough," the vice president urged cooperation and continued "fighting" to correct the country's financial troubles. 

"Not enough, not enough, not enough," he said of the nation's economic progress since the 2008 downturn. "And it's up and it's down, but it's been constantly forward. But not enough. We have to do more, we have to keep fighting through this period of transition and this godawful recession we inherited.

Ryan Williams, a spokesman for Mitt Romney, said Biden's speech "will do nothing to lower the state’s 9.4 percent unemployment rate, encourage small business growth, or help companies add to their payrolls."

Biden skewered congressional Republicans for obstructing what he called "bipartisan" and reasonable measures to spur jobs, naming items on the president's congressional "to-do list" such as the creation of a veterans job corps, mortgage refinancing assistance for some homeowners, and incentives to keep companies from going abroad. 

On last year's Capitol Hill fight over payroll tax cuts, Biden invoked his upbringing and "neighborhood"  to suggest that most Republicans don't relate to the impact the thousand dollar cash infusion would have had on average American families. 

"A lot of these guys don't know that a thousand dollars makes a difference," said the Pennsylvania native. "It makes the difference between whether or not you pay your automobile insurance that year. It makes a difference what you're going to eat and how often you have meat on the menu. A thousand bucks makes a difference in my neighborhood." 

Even worse than GOP obstruction, he said, would be the other party's vision for the country as laid out by Rep. Paul Ryan, whom Biden called "a bright, handsome guy" whose budget would have "a devastating impact on America." 

"He is a fine guy but I think his ideas are not nearly as fine as he is a man," he said

The vice president's appearance in swing state North Carolina marked a visit to one of the most heavily trafficked political battlegrounds in the state. NBC's most recent analysis found the Greensboro-High Point area is the seventh most saturated media market in the country for political ads.  

The venue for his remarks was a 242,000 square foot research center which houses several companies — with its largest tenant being Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center — and employs approximately 450 people. 

The Winston-Salem area has suffered major job losses as a result of the declining manufacturing and textile industries in the region. But Biden pointed to the area's new focus on biotechnology and other types of innovation as an example of how Americans are re-imagining manufacturing in the modern era. 

"What I can tell you about America is this: there is a deep deep strength in this country," he said. "No matter how tough things get, there is no quit in this country."