City Slicker

By Jay Newton-Small | @JNSmall | March 4, 2008 | +

Election day in Texas! And that means… cattle?
Obama this morning took a tour of the Future Farmers of America exhibit in Houston, Texas. We’d been promised a rodeo by his handlers and had been wondering: who rides rodeo at 8:30am? Turns out no one. And, alas, Obama didn’t go near any of the prize bulls and cows being groomed by their owners (thus avoiding all kinds of bull jokes).

Instead he spent about 30 minutes greeting dozens of exhibitors, many of them children. “I gotta admit, I’m sort of a city slicker,” Obama told a bunch of 10-year-olds at a booth sponsored by Lil’ Dobbers 4-H club, young farmers-to-be from Limestone County. One enterprising kid handed the Senator his business card in case Obama “ever needs a trailer.”

There was a surprising number of Democrats among the exhibitors. Colby Jenkins, a 21-year-old Simbrah cattle raiser from Waco, said Obama was smart to visit the event. “He’s going to win some votes,” Jenkins said.

Still, many of those posing for pictures were just idly curious. “I think it’s great that he’s here,” Leonard John, an exhibitor from San Antonio, said as he watched Obama, jacketless, with his sleeves rolled up, climb on a trailer. “But, personally, I’m a Bush man. I’d love to see him get a third term.”

cattle, cupcakes, rodeo, texas, Barack Obama, Uncategorized

@TIMEPolitics

Latest on Swampland

Closeup May 25, 2012

Political Picures of the Week, May 18-25

TIME’s photo editors bring you the best pictures of the past week from the Beltway and beyond.
From our Partners
Obama Administration Blocks Global Health Fund To Fight Disease In Developing NationsHuffPost Politics

The Cowardice of Colin PowellSlate
Ryan Crocker Says Cases Of Afghans Killing NATO Military Counterparts Can Be 'Personal'HuffPost Politics
2012 Election May 25, 2012

The Phony War: Obama and Romney Are Debating Character, Not Policy

More than five months from Election Day, the back-and-forth about Mitt Romney’s record at Bain already feels played out. Unfortunately, there’s good reason to expect the campaign continues in this vein indefinitely. Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney are terribly interested in dwelling on policy platforms. Romney’s plan to slash spending and keep taxes low on the wealthy isn’t especially popular, at least not at any level of detail beyond a blithe promise to shrink the deficit. Meanwhile, Obama’s signature first-term achievements, like health care, the stimulus and Wall Street reform, are all unpopular or tricky to sell. (The Dodd-Frank bill is the most popular of these, but hyping it means offending wealthy donors.) So what we’re getting instead is a superficial duel about character–and, worse, one that’s based on the largely false premise that the better man can better “manage” the economy back to health.