WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama may help Jennifer Wedel's husband find a job. Whether he gets her vote is another question.
Two days after Obama talked with Wedel during an online town hall and offered to take a look at her unemployed husband's resume, Wedel said the president has followed through.
Wedel told The Associated Press in a phone interview Wednesday that she got a call from a White House deputy chief of staff, Alyssa Mastromonaco, who told her Obama had made a personal point of making sure the matter was taken care of. Mastromonaco said the resume was sent to contacts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where the couple lives.
Now Wedel's husband Darin has been contacted by several recruiters, and Wedel said she's grateful.
But Wedel, a Republican, said that may not be enough to get her vote unless Obama also improves some of his job policies.
"Just because he's able to send a resume out, that's not going to be a vote factor," Wedel said.
"We're just one American," she said. "There are thousands of Americans just like my husband with no job."
Wedel wants Obama to look at limiting the number of visas going to high-tech workers from foreign countries, the issue she raised with him Monday evening in the forum hosted by Google Plus. Wedel was able to question Obama in a live video chat room known as a Hangout.
Obama expressed surprise during their exchange that Darin Wedel was out of work, saying that the word he was getting from industry was that fields like semiconductor engineering were in demand and Darin Wedel should be able to get a job. Obama also said he found the situation "interesting," a comment Republicans have subsequently used to attack the president by suggesting he's out of touch with the concerns of the unemployed.
Jennifer Wedel said Wednesday that she felt like she was "hushed up a little bit" by Obama when they spoke, but that she also found him candid and appreciated his accessibility. "I don't think any other president has shown that outreach," Wedel said.
