BY WESLEY P. HESTER

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is out with a new TV ad in Virginia and eight other states taking aim at congress rather than former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.  

The ad, titled “Jobs,” touts the president’s job creation record while conceding that they need to grow faster and asks Americans to call on congress to support Obama’s jobs bill.

“The President’s jobs plan would put teachers, firefighters, police officers and construction workers back to work. Right now,” the narrator says. “And it’s paid for by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more. But Congress refuses to act. Tell Congress we can’t wait.”

Republicans — and even some Democrats — balked at Obama’s American Jobs Act when it was introduced in September in large part due to proposed tax hikes on high earners.

U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va, for example, called that part of the proposal “terrible,” adding: “We shouldn’t increase taxes on ordinary income. … There are other ways to get there.”

Parts of the bill have since passed, including a payroll tax cut.

The new ad comes on the heels of a dismal jobs report last week, with the unemployment rate rising from 8.1 percent to 8.2 percent.

“President Obama has had three-and-a-half years to keep his campaign promise to grow the economy and create jobs. Now, with record-level unemployment and job creation that even the president calls inadequate, it is clear his policies haven’t worked,” responded Romney campaign spokesman Curt Cashour.