And he won’t be anyone’s president after January 2013.

(WSJ) — President Barack Obama sought to answer a question that’s been the source of some head-scratching ever since he began his bus tour through North Carolina and Virginia this week.

Mr. Obama said his three-day itinerary takes him to some deeply Republican areas of the South because “I’m not the Democratic president or the Republican president, I’m the president.”

“I don’t care if you’re a Republican or Democrat because we’re all Americans and we are in this together,” he added as he wound up his latest pitch for Congress to pass components of his $447 billion jobs bill.

Plus, he told the audience at a community college campus here, he likes North Carolina so much. “Even the folks who don’t vote for me are nice to me,” Mr. Obama said.