Barack Obama sought to woo female voters as he appeared with his wife Michelle on the daytime talk show ‘The View’
When host and veteran journalist Barbara Walters kidded Michelle Obama about bringing the president as her “date,” Mr Obama quipped, “I’ve been told I’m just eye candy here.”
The appearance, which will air on Tuesday on the ABC television network, marks the first time the Obamas have appeared together on the one-hour show, which features four female hosts, including Hollywood veteran Whoopi Goldberg, and is popular with middle-income women voters.
The taping in New York was squeezed in before Mr Obama’s obligations at the United Nations General Assembly’s annual meeting, where he is delivering a Tuesday morning speech.
He said he would like to return to teaching once his Presidency finish, as he appered with his wife Michelle on the daytime talk show ‘The View’.
“The thing that I think I would enjoy most is spending time working with kids,” he said during the show, which is popular with middle-income women voters.
“I love teaching… I miss teaching, and I’m not sure necessarily it will be in a classroom, but the idea to be able to go around to various cities and helping to create mentorships and apprenticeships and just giving young people the sense of possibility.”
But Mr Obama said “there are all kinds of things I want to do in a second term”, before contemplating the end of his presidency.
During the show, the Obamas joked about their upcoming anniversary and presented the hosts with White House cloth napkins, golf balls, candy and bottles of Obama’s home-brewed beer. The couple’s 20th anniversary will fall on the day of the first presidential debate, Oct. 3.
“Our first wedding anniversary, I totally forgot,” Michelle dead-panned.
The president jokingly responded: “Cold.”
Mr Obama and his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, are both fighting hard for the women’s vote.
In 2008, middle-class women were key to Mr Obama’s presidential win, and Mr Obama has worked to get them to the polls again. His campaign this summer renewed its focus on social issues such as birth control, women’s health and reproductive rights.
Democrats have accused Republicans of declaring a “war on women,” while Mr Romney’s campaign has slammed Mr Obama’s policies for weakening the economy and hurting women in the work force.
During the taping, host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a vocal Republican supporter, asked if the Obama administration had failed the middle class.
“Everything that we’ve done has been designed to deal with not only the immediate crisis, but make sure that the middle class, which had been struggling for a decade before that, is feeling more secure,” Obama said. “The problems that were created aren’t going to be solved overnight.”
Hasselbeck also pressed Mr Obama about his previous comments that he cannot end Washington gridlock just from the inside, telling him: “You are Washington, you’re about as inside as it gets.”
“The idea is that you can’t change Washington just from the inside, you’ve got to mobilise the American people. When the American people are engaged and involved, then change always happens,” Mr Obama replied.
“We can’t play just an inside game where special interests and lobbyists and big money and folks writin’ big checks, they’re the only ones who have influence.”
Mr Romney’s wife Ann will also make a stab at winning over television viewers chatting with comedian Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” in her first late-night interview on Tuesday, according to the NBC network.
Ann Romney will give her thoughts on family life and the coming election, the network said in a statement.
(The Telegraph)
