President Barack Obama heads for Virginia today as he embarks on an uphill battle to win Republican support for a make-or-break $447 billion jobs plan, Reuters reported.

The proposals Obama made in a nationally televised speech Thursday night are heavily weighted toward tax cuts for workers and businesses, and crafted to appeal to middle-class voters who gravitate toward the political center.

The White House sees the mix of payroll tax cuts and spending to upgrade roads, bridges and school buildings as the best hope for reducing the 9.1 percent unemployment rate that threatens Obama’s presidency and addressing what he called a “national crisis.”

Republican leaders showed some signs of interest in working with the president.
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said Obama’s ideas “merit consideration,” and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the payroll tax cuts were “something that will be a part of the discussions.”

Global stock markets were not impressed by the speech, and the Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 1 percent in today’s early trading.