ELKHART, Ind. – President Barack Obama returned to campaign mode on Monday, right down to his signature “boy-girl-boy-girl” rotation for his questioners.
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As a candidate, Obama would take questions from the audience from a man and then a woman. The back-and-forth mode clearly amused him during his two years on the trail; as president, he brought it back during a town hall-style meeting in economically hard-hit Indiana.
Obama explained the rules at the start of the meeting, which the president used to pitch his economic stimulus bill under debate in the Senate.
“Here’s the deal on questions: First of all, we didn’t screen anybody, so there’s some people who like me in the audience, some people that don’t, some people agree with me, some people who don’t. It doesn’t matter. We want to take questions from everybody,” Obama said as he wandered across the stage built in a high school gym.
He also asked the 1,700-person audience to raise their hands, wait until aides gave them microphones and announced their names.
“And the last thing I’m going to do is I’m going to go girl, boy, girl, boy, so that nobody gets mad at me, all right?” Obama said.
Not all the questions were friendly. His third came from a woman who asked him about failed Cabinet picks who withdrew amid controversy.
“You’ve come to our county and asked us to trust you, but those that you have appointed to your Cabinet are not trustworthy and can’t handle their own budget and taxes,” the woman said to boos before Obama cut off the rowdy crowd.
He told the crowd he wanted to hear the question and respond.
“I’m one of those that thinks you need to have a beer with Sean Hannity,” said the woman, citing the conservative Fox News personality.
Obama acknowledged what he called “honest mistakes.”
His first pick for commerce secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, withdrew amid a grand jury investigation into how campaign donors received state contracts. Similarly, former Sen. Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination to run Health and Human Services after acknowledging he had not paid taxes on a car and driver service.
Both, Obama said, were “honest mistakes.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who also had tax problems, won Senate confirmation.
“Now, with respect to Sean Hannity, I didn’t know that he had invited me for a beer,” Obama said. “You know, but – I will take that under advisement. Generally, his opinion of me does not seem to be very high, but, but I’m always good for a beer.”
