President Obama led a discussion on MTV yesterday; an appearance that helped him connect with the country’s youth. Approximately 250 people attended the event, and many more tuned in on MTV, Country Music Television (CMT) and Black Entertainment Television (BET), all of which are media organizations that are known to attract young audiences.
Participants asked the president a range of questions, including, “what is your administration planning to do to improve comprehensive primary education and address college affordability?” and “if the economy does not improve over the next two years, why should we vote you back in?”
President Obama pointed out what he sees as the strength of younger generations when he said:
“The amount of interaction, the amount of understanding that exists in your generation among people of different races and different creeds and different colors is unprecedented… That’s why I remain confident about America’s ability to compete in the world, precisely because we’ve got a little bit of everybody in this country. But what is important is that we make sure to work together, that we understand our strength comes from unity and not division. And that’s going to be something that I think your generation is going to be especially important because if all of you lead, then your parents and your grandparents tend to follow.”
Many political figures in the U.S. have used MTV as an outlet for connecting with young voters, including Bill Clinton, John McCain and George W. Bush.
You can read the entire transcript of the president’s MTV discussion on the official White House website.
I missed the President on MTV. Did he do or say anything important or was it just a publicity stunt to try and get the young voters out? I’m a young voter who tries to keep a political blog at http://www.deconstructingthenews.com
When hell and heaven are both within us, one has to distinguish who is asking a question to the self, the music of it flows through MTV for the youth and that is why President Obama chose the source to represent his child for the youth waving his hand with the music to be picked up by the youth – you see it is really difficult to read smiles and those introvert who extrovertly do, would find a smile of their President in them and music is all about that to smile and enjoy and also pick up the beats because America right now is on beats for both the young and old and our Obama has rightly picked on the young for the old to move and follow course and my spirit for the youth conveys “follow Obama” because he is an actor on the stage requiring publicity to become and in becoming lies the truth for the great country America – Cheers to MTV and Cheers to the youth and “above all” cheers to America that holds young and old together alike leaving aside the age.
Ravi.
if i want to live in usa, what kind of halp I ll get? it’s great to realise that “our generation” is more “colourfull” than the past…but what is the difference, really, if its to talk about what we are all the time, I dont see the purpous! we dont know what we are ’cause we were believing what was sid…as today! dont make us feel strange! “we are the world”! and so what? what we ve got? better than in that time?
I dont believe that we ve got better than “hoping that it will be better”…
I would love to live in this time, where the colours skin have point…
I would love to hear about tomorow…what we want…what we do expect…what we will get…what we can hope…
I would love that what I was believeing when I was teenager happened today! before I get old!
I would love to enjoy this time without to worry…
I dont want to hear about the past over and over…
I want to live my time!
NOW!
Americas president is da bomb make some crazy noise for obama
Please visit my site.
Regards
President Obama is not above going to MTV, and talking to the Young people, but tell me how many times have the Republicans spoke to the Young?.
President Obama save this Country from depression, but you people wouldn’t know that because all you do call names and repeat what you hear some one else say, right or wrong. I’m going to post an article on this site and some of you need to read and research before you bad mouth the President of the United State.
Buenas Shirley, son asertada tu pronunciamiento , con relacion al presidente Barack Obama ,no hay ahora mismo un presidente de la categoria de el , mira su forma de expresarsey su modo de hablar ,comparalo y veraz , que la persona ,primero tiene que averiguar ante de hablar de ese personaje tal ilistre y humildad , que ha dado un pais , algunos ,bendiciones y mcuhas surte , señor presidente.-
Obama ‘Natural’ Chief Executive Officer, Rattner Tells CNN
October 09, 2010, 2:30 PM EDT
Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama is a ‘natural’ chief executive officer and isn’t a socialist, the president’s former auto task force head Steven Rattner said in an interview with CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”
“I thought he was a natural and I have been around a lot of CEOs over the years,” Rattner said during an interview taped Oct. 7 and scheduled for broadcast tomorrow. “I came away with a lot of respect for his CEO qualities.”
Rattner, 58, the former head of the U.S. government’s Automotive Task Force and co-founder of New York-based private- equity firm Quadrangle Group LLC, was asked about polls showing that some voters, both Republican and Democrat, think Obama is a socialist.
“He’s not a socialist, that’s for sure,” Rattner said, adding, “I would probably concede that he is maybe less comfortable with business” than former Democratic President Bill Clinton, Rattner said. Clinton had “some appreciation or fondness for business that was maybe a little bit unusual, but it was there,” he said.
Rattner also said that Obama has to deal with the political reality that has followed the 2008 financial crisis. “One of the things I say often to my Wall Street friends who are very upset with the president to a person, is you’ve got to deal with the climate that’s out there, and this is a country that is angry,” Rattner said.
Faced with midterm elections Nov. 2, the Democratic president and Democratic-controlled Congress are being buffeted by voter complaints about tax dollars having gone to firms paying million-dollar bonuses, concern over budget deficits and voter objections that it was unfair for the government to rescue banks that caused the crisis, which has pushed the jobless rate to almost 10 percent.
Wall Street Bubble
“The president does believe that Wall Street was a significant part of the problem, more of a problem than Wall Street believes it was,” Rattner said. “I think Wall Street is a little bit in its own little bubble and doesn’t really get what’s going on out in the country.”
Rattner recalled a meeting about a year and a half ago at which Obama told a group of bankers “I’m the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks.”
Rattner directed Obama’s auto task force from February 2009 until July last year, after General Motors Co. emerged from a bankruptcy backed by $50 billion in government aid. He has since written a memoir of the process called “Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry.”
Tough Decision
The administrations of Obama and that of his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, committed a total of $85 billion to rescue the U.S. automakers, aid suppliers and prop up the financing arms of GM and Chrysler. About $67 billion in loans and equity investments are still outstanding, according to administration figures. GM is 61 percent owned by the U.S. Treasury.
The decision to save Chrysler was the most difficult because it was the number three company, had no global business and closing it down would help General Motors and Ford sell more cars, Rattner said on CNN.
“I think in any normal economic time, many of us would have voted to let it go,” Rattner said. “But we were not in a normal economic time,” he said. “The economy was in freefall. The stock market was in freefall. We didn’t know if the financial markets were going to recover or not.”
The decision to save Chrysler was made primarily to save 300,000 jobs; unemployment at Chrysler would have added two tenths of a percentage point to the unemployment rate, he said.
“That was a social experiment that we didn’t really want to take, if we thought Chrysler could be saved,” Rattner said.
President Obama held a open forum broadcast by MTV, BET and CMT talking to young voters about the economy, jobs, immigration.