barack and michelle obama wedding - 'I married cute Michelle to improve my gene pool': Obama's bizarre tribute to First Lady as pair shop for pumpkins on campaign trail, Barack Obama today said he married his 'cute' wife Michelle to improve his 'gene pool' as the President continued a three-day trip of North Carolina and Virginia.The couple stopped off to buy pumpkins from a roadside farmers market along the way and loaded them onto Mr Obama's taxpayer-funded tour bus to take back to Washington.
The White House was forced to defend the use of the vehicle, and other costs incurred by the government, after commentators suggested the President's rhetoric on the tour struck as the start of a re-election campaign.
Mrs Obama lifted a huge white pumpkin on to a metal cart, which the Wood's Orchard owner estimated weighed 70 pounds, CBS reported.
The pumpkins will be displayed at the door to the White House after travelling with the Obamas in the tour bus the media have dubbed 'Ground Force One.'
The multi-million pound vehicle is just one of the costs that some critics have argued should not be at taxpayer expense.
On the Senate floor Monday, Senator John McCain raised concerns about the partisan rhetoric during the tour from his 2008 presidential rival.
'I was somewhat taken aback, since the President and his spokesperson had billed his trip as a taxpayer-paid visit,' said Mr McCain.
Republicans have highlighted how North Carolina and Virginia are typically swing states which Mr Obama won in 2008 and hopes to keep in his column next year.
On the final day of his tour today, President Obama praised companies that have promised to hire 25,000 veterans or military spouses within two years, calling it a sign of patriotism and business savvy.
He pushed his economic agenda anew to a military audience and to firefighters.
'We ask you to fight, to sacrifice, to risk your lives for your country,' Mr Obama told an audience of thousands of people at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia. 'The last thing you should have to do is fight for a job when you come home. Not here. Not in the United States of America.'
Later in the day Mr Obama repeated the pitch at a fire station in North Chesterfield, saying that veterans shouldn't return from service only to find themselves out of work.
'We've got to do something about that. The question is why Congress isn't willing to move.'
In the military setting, Mr Obama's pitch for his jobs bill was far less partisan than it has been across his bus tour of North Carolina and Virginia.
He didn't target at length the Republican lawmakers who have voted against his plan, promising more broadly to keep pushing Congress to pass a bill that's now been broken into pieces.
The President's day-long swing through Virginia does, however, have deep political undertones.
Mr Obama won the traditionally Republican-leaning state in 2008, but his poll numbers here are down, and some of the state's high-profile Democrats are staying away from the President's events.
The final day of Mr Obama's bus tour had a different feel primarily because the Obamas were together as the president campaigned for his ideas and, in turn, for his re-election.
The family stopped for lunch at Anna's Pizza and Italian Kitchen, having a meal with four veterans from different parts of the nation who had attended the earlier event at the base.
As Mr Obama has been travelling, lawmakers back in Washington were taking the first steps to break his nearly $450 billion jobs bill into pieces for possible votes.
It's the only way elements of the measure stand a chance of passing, given that Senate Republicans blocked action on the full package last week.
The bus trip has given the president the opportunity to promote elements of his jobs plan in places the White House says would benefit most should the measures pass.
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