Obama sings again, this time blues with B.B. King, Mick Jagger
President Barack Obama gave what appeared to be an impromptu performance of “Sweet Home Chicago” during a blues concert Tuesday night at the White House in celebration of Black History Month.
At the end of an evening of performances from the likes of B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, Derek Trucks, Shemekia Copeland and others, Obama grabbed a mic from the stage and crooned, “Come on, baby don’t you wanna go,” part of the popular blues standard.
A month ago, Obama sang a little Al Green — a moment captured on video and viewed thousands of times over. It was seen as having added cool points to the president. Afterwards First Lady Michelle said Obama sings to her all the time.
Whether Tuesday’s performance was really impromptu, or staged as another way to help the president’s image during an election year, we may never know. One thing we do know is that Republican candidates like Mitt Romney have not had the same success in musical performance.
Obama called the blues “music with humble beginnings,” with roots in slavery and segregation in the United States.
Obama said, “Because their music teaches us that when we find ourselves at a crossroads, we don’t shy away from our problems. We own them. We face up to them. We deal with them. We sing about them. We turn them into art.”
See the video here from PBS. Obama sings at about 47 seconds.
Perry attacks more conservative rivals, ignores Romney
Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s latest ads don’t even bother attacking Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney. With polls showing him in fifth place among Republicans in Iowa and seventh in New Hampshire, Perry’s aim is now to emerge as one of the top two conservative options to Romney.
To get there, he needs to knock off some of the other candidates polling immediately in front of him — which is why his latest TV ad in Iowa attacks Rep. Ron Paul, Rep. Michele Bachmann, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and ex-Sen. Rick Santorum, but doesn’t mention Romney.
“The fox guarding the hen house is like asking a congressman to fix Washington,” the ad’s narrator says. “Bad idea. Their years in Congress left us with debt and bailouts.”
Here’s the video, via RPerry2012/YouTube:
With Santorum seeing a boost in Iowa polls — a CNN/Time magazine poll yesterday found him in third place in Iowa, with 16 percent — Perry is doubling down on the former Pennsylvania congressman. In a new Iowa radio ad, which takes the format of a TV game show, Perry highlights Santorum’s record of supporting earmarked federal monies for his constituents:
“Who personally demanded more than $1 billion of earmarks in his 16 years in Congress?” a narrator asks. “Jay, from Ames?”
“Rick Santorum?” answers the fictitious Jay.
“Right,” the narrator says. “Santorum grabbed for a billion in earmarks, until voters kicked him out of office in a landslide.”
Watch a video version of the radio ad, courtesy of RPerry2012/YouTube:
Gingrich attacks Romney, a week after promising a positive campaign
A week ago, Newt Gingrich vowed to follow Ronald Reagan’s famed “11th Commandment” and withhold attacks on fellow Republican candidates for president.
But last night his campaign e-mail blasted reporters a lengthy opposition sheet on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, ripping Romney’s latest television ad, “Conservative Agenda.”
In the oppo sheet, the Gingrich campaign calls Romney “Mitt the Massachusetts Moderate” and highlights a number of his past, more moderate positions that may be at odds with his current stances. These include Romney’s health care reforms in Massachusetts, his support for universal health insurance and abortion rights, his vote for Democrat Paul Tsongas in his 1992 bid for president and his renunciation of the Reagan/Bush era.
“Can we trust a Massachusetts Moderate to enact a conservative agenda?” Newt 2012 Communications Director Joe DeSantis said in a statement. “Our campaign might have plenty of things to say about that, but the best response certainly comes from Mitt Romney himself [who in 2002 told a television reporter]:
“I think people recognize that I am not a partisan Republican. That I’m someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.”
Romney’s latest ad, airing in Iowa, is below. The Gingrich campaign’s opposition sheet on Romney follows.
Huntsman goes after the media
For months, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign has arguably been kept afloat by the media. Fundraising has lagged and his national poll numbers are still at about 2 percent — the same as when he entered the race in June. Yet Huntsman has received lengthy and favorable profiles by the New York Times magazine, Newsweek, Esquire and Vogue — coverage that Buddy Roemer or Gary Johnson, who have registered similar poll numbers, or Ron Paul, who has much better ones, could only dream of.
But that didn’t keep Huntsman from lashing out at the media today while campaigning in Nashua, N.H. “My hot button is when the media have me come across as cool and collected, because I’m not,” said Huntsman, in response to a question about what makes him angry. “When I’m placed on the end of the debate stage and get three minutes of time because everyone is focused on who lights their hair on fire in the debate.”
Huntsman praised his “Lincoln-Douglas” debate in New Hampshire last week with Newt Gingrich as a model of civilized discourse because neither he nor Gingrich were asked any “gotcha questions.” But he lamented the media’s analysis of the debate. “There wasn’t any blood on the floor, how come you didn’t kill each other?” he said. “This is what we’ve come to.”
Huntsman may have a fair point about the media’s coverage of the election as a “horse race,” but he may not want to cite an event at which his own daughter fell asleep as an example of an ideal presidential debate.
There are a couple problems with Jon Huntsman. He has us focusing on how little time he gets on the debate stage and whether or not he lights his hair on fire. What he doesn’t have us paying attention to his how much PAC and SuperPAC money he gets, and how much money his dad and Huntsman Corp funnel into his SuperPAC. Like we’re supposed to believe that isn’t coordinated? Plus he believes our relationship with China is the future. We need a President who is Free To Lead, who doesn’t accept PAC or SuperPAC money, who will demand Fair Trade, not Free Trade, especially with countries like China, who use slave, child and sweatshop labor. We need Governor Buddy Roemer.
Best of the debate: Ron Paul v. Michele Bachmann
Presidential debates allow voters to hear how candidates differ, and there are few policy differences as great as that between Rep. Ron Paul and Rep. Michele Bachmann on Iran. Take this exchange from last night:
Bachmann:
“Without a shadow of a doubt, Iran will take a nuclear weapon, they will use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map and they’ve stated they will use it against the United States of America.”
For what it’s worth, Politifact has looked into Bachmann’s claim and rated it “false.”
Paul responded:
“I think this wild goal to have another war in the name of defense is the dangerous thing, the danger is really us overreacting.”
I don`t think that we should have a war with iran because the U.S. does not have that kind of money just to spend on having a war with iran. What we need to do is that, we need to allow Israel to handle it for them selves more than we should help them. We need jobs and protect kids from going into bad schools where there`s drug smugglin into class. And america needs to shut off all the beer factorys and stop selling beer in stores too as well. And america needs to stop going against Same-sex marriage too as well. And america needs to aband straight marriage and only allow same-sex marriage. Nobody is really following the Bible anymore, so please keep on allowing gay marriage more please
Notes from West Liberty, Iowa
(View an in-depth look at scenes from Iowa and New Hampshire in a downloadable pdf format here and a look ahead to the primaries here)
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West Liberty is Iowa’s first Hispanic-majority city. Fifty-two percent of the people in this town of about 3,700 are Hispanic, according to the latest U.S. Census. It’s a number that would be impressive in any state. But it’s especially noteworthy in Iowa, an overwhelmingly white corner of the America Heartland where just 5 percent of the population statewide is Hispanic.
The town, located between Davenport and Iowa City, has long had a sizable and growing Hispanic population. The reason? The major employer here is West Liberty Foods, a 260,000-square-foot food processing plant that employs about 850 workers.
The big product the plant cranks out is turkey. Each year, about 5 million live birds go in end of the West Liberty Foods plant and come out the other as about 200 million pounds of processed turkey product of one kind or another, some of it actually recognizable.
A future Yuma, Modesto, Visalia,… with so much opportunity that they have the highest unemployment rates in the country.
Notes from Independence, Iowa
(View an in-depth look at scenes from Iowa and New Hampshire in a downloadable pdf format here and a look ahead to the primaries here)
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The motto of Independence, Iowa is “America’s fame is in our name.” But Mike Anderson, the pastor of Baptist Bethel Church in Independence, says some of the problems besetting the country are on display in this town of 6,000, as well. “People around here don’t work as hard as they used to,” Anderson, 48, said. “Even farmers don’t do a lot of physical work anymore.”
The change — a function of the mechanization of agriculture and the demise of the small family farms he grew up on — has “not been a good thing” for the community, Andersen said.
“When I was growing up, you couldn’t really get in too much trouble because you had a lot to do on the farm. We didn’t work as hard as the previous generation, but we still did a lot of physical work. Now, there are a lot of people who are on welfare around here – and a lot of them really shouldn’t be. People come to me, telling me they’re unhappy with where they’re at and say, ‘I want to change my life.’ I’ll tell them, ‘Well, you need to start getting yourself some gainful employment’ because you always feel better about yourself when you’re productive. It’s a biblical principle. Course the economy right now makes it tough for everyone. It’s harder than it used to be. My oldest son is trying to find something. But there are things to find. And the truth of the matter is someone who really wants to work will find a way to work even when it’s tough like it is now.”
Still, Anderson – a father of six – says he enjoys life in Buchanan County. “For one thing the cost of living isn’t outrageous here. It’s a good lifestyle. There are good folks around here, a good community. And I’m not a city boy. Compared to where I’m from in Iowa, this is the big city. I can’t see myself going anywhere else.”
Hillary Clinton wouldn’t flee to Canada if Sarah Palin was president
What did students in Saudi Arabia want to ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about? Republican Sarah Palin.
One young man asked Clinton: “Does the prospect of Sarah Palin one day becoming president, maybe, terrify you?” and whether the Secretary of State might consider moving to Canada — or even Russia — in response.
“Well, the short answer is no. I will not be emigrating,” Clinton replied with a smile. “I will be visiting as often as I can.”
Clinton, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, is no stranger to politics, but said she would not speculate on who Republicans might nominate in 2012 to run for president. Palin was John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 election.
“You know our political seasons never end. It is part of the American political environment that people are always speculating on who will run for president, and who will become president, and I’ve gone through that experience personally,” she said.
Wrapping up a three-day Gulf trip, Clinton spoke at a college in Jeddah where she faced questions about Palin and the U.S. healthcare system, but relatively little discussion of one of her signature issues — promoting women’s rights.
At least you can actually see Canada from New York.
ABSOLUTELY LOVE MY PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!