Obama sells jobs plan in Silicon Valley

President Barack Obama is on the road selling his jobs plan — and his re-election hopes — to plugged-in networkers in Silicon Valley and around the country.

He was to appear Monday at a town hall-style event hosted by the career-focused social networking site LinkedIn to pitch his nearly $450 billion jobs proposal as he travels through California scooping up campaign cash.

The town hall, the White House's latest attempt to meld old-school campaigning with new media capabilities, will allow Obama to take questions from LinkedIn users online as well as a live audience at the Computer History Museum near the company's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

It comes midway through a three-day West Coast swing that includes seven fundraisers. Obama is racing to collect cash ahead of an important Friday quarterly fundraising deadline that will provide a snapshot of the president's strength against the gelling GOP field.

Obama has been using the events to try out his newly aggressive tone with supporters who have been disappointed with the president's compromises with the GOP. The president is mixing frontal attacks on Republicans with words of encouragement intended to buck up the faithful as the 2012 campaign revs up.

Obama said 2012 would be an especially tough election because people are discouraged and disillusioned with government, but he also said he was determined because so much is at stake.

The GOP alternative, Obama said Sunday, is "an approach to government that will fundamentally cripple America in meeting the challenges of the 21st century."