Obama's Super Bowl Guest List: A Primer

(AP)

President Obama will have four senators and 11 House members over to the White House for a Super Bowl party Sunday.

It's worth saying up front that sometimes a Super Bowl party is just a Super Bowl party.

Still, the White House provided the list of attendees to reporters, and Obama aides (including Bill Burton who

appeared on CBSNews.com's new political Web show, Washington Unplugged

) seem to be talking up the affair as another gesture of cross-party outreach. (A rundown of past efforts is here.) So here's a quick rundown of who's coming by for the big game.

From Pennsylvania:
Sens. Bob Casey (D) – a major Obama supporter during the presidential campaign – and Arlen Specter (R) will both be there. Casey is reportedly bringing those ubiquitous yellow "terrible towels."

From the House side, Reps. Charlie Dent (R), Patrick Murphy (D) and Mike Doyle (D) will be in attendance.

(AP)

Doyle is Pittsburgh's representative, but Murphy is definitely from Eagles territory just outside of Philadelphia and Dent is a professed Eagles fan as well. (More here on the Pennsylvania contingent.)

From Arizona:
Two of Arizona's eight representatives will be at the White House: Republican Trent Franks and Democrat Raul Grijalva.

Conspicuously absent will be the state's Republican Senators, John McCain (too soon, perhaps?) and Jon Kyl. MSNBC reports that McCain, at least, was invited. Kyl's office said only that he was planning to watch with family.

Maybe they were offended that Mr. Obama said he is siding with the Steelers.

Everybody else:
This is where it gets interesting.

Why – out of 100 senators and 435 house members (minus a few vacancies) – were the following people invited: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), Rep. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-D.C.), Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)?

Well…

Durbin is a friend and mentor to Mr. Obama.

Klobuchar was a campaign supporter.

Cummings was Mr. Obama's Maryland campaign chair – an early supporter who backed Mr. Obama when other prominent African-Americans were siding with Hillary Clinton.

Similar story on Davis. He overlapped with Mr. Obama at Harvard Law School, backed him during the campaign and was reportedly considered for a job in Mr. Obama's administration. Plus he's a Democrat from deep-red Alabama.

DeLauro was yet another campaign backer who was on the cabinet short-list.

Holmes-Norton is a neighbor and is, after all, Mr. Obama's Congressional representative now that he lives in our nation's capital. (Though she doesn't really get to vote, which remains a sticky subject in D.C.)

Hodes spokesman Mark Bergman told the Associated Press that the congressman is "not sure why he made the list." Perhaps because he was the first representative or senator from any of the early primary states to endorse any of the presidential candidates, and he happened to pick then-underdog Obama. That's gotta be worth a Super Bowl party invite.

And Upton is a centrist Republican who used to have regular dinners with a bipartisan group including White House Chief of Staff (then Rep.) Rahm Emanuel and said he is "encouraged" by Mr. Obama's push for bipartisan harmony.

Then again, maybe a Super Bowl party is just a Super Bowl party.

[zeno518]

Is Obama really all that?

[oshunbrez]

For God''s sake people, it''s the Super Bowl! Let the man enjoy the *** ball game! He WON the election! He IS the President! He won by a landslide! Can you not respect The United States of America enough to realize that we as Americans need to come together as Americans and respect the constitution of our country and respect President Obama! He is a MAN, not Jesus Christ! He is going to make mistakes, we all do! We are HUMANS! But you are hanging him out to dry over a ball game here! Grow up and give the man a break! He can''t do any worse than the last few years!

[shuturpihole]

What are the words the Democrats fear most today?

ICEBERG!!!!

OH, THE HUMANITY!!!

Posted by txgrouch2009 at 06:34 AM : Feb 01, 2009


Republicans: We can''t support anything that might since that might not help us politically.

[jedi23232]

WOULD JUST LIKE TO ASK THE CBS NEWS ANCORMEN AND WOMEN TO PLEASE SHOW PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA THE SAME RESPECT THAT YOU HAVE SHOWN PREVIOUS PRESIDENTS.HE SHOULD BE ADRESSED AS PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by vlynneh at 10:40 PM : Jan 31, 2009

If we were to show his the same respect as CBS showed Bush then we should start talking about removing Obama from Office and calling him all kinds of Awful names. That would be fair!

[vlynneh]

I WOULD JUST LIKE TO ASK THE CBS NEWS ANCORMEN AND WOMEN TO PLEASE SHOW PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA THE SAME RESPECT THAT YOU HAVE SHOWN PREVIOUS PRESIDENTS.HE SHOULD BE ADRESSED AS PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA.

[khanghi-2009]

McCain said he''s not attending because he wants to WATCH THE GAME!

[armyhummer]

Not the kind of thing anyone respecting the constitution would do ...so is Obama going to abuse our rights too just like BUSH?



Posted by tincup356 at 07:20 PM : Jan 31, 2009


Of course he will.

Libs will be calling him George W Obama pretty soon.

[liberalme]

I see the Hindendemocrats going down in a flaming inferno.

The Democrats are imploding in a supernova of sleaze.

Posted by txgrouch2009

Yep you''re right rowdy--then you can get Rush Lintball to run for pres and Palin as running mate!!

Then the whole country can continue to be stuck on stupid!!!

[tincup356]

People that think whatever THEIR party does is ok...even if it was same actions they said were wrong when the OTHER party did it,,,,,,our Congress is acting like a bunch of neighborhood thugs...certainly not like honorable representatives of the people.....they should be ashamed of ALL the corruption and deceit,,,,that they are ALL tangled in.......If any of them were honorable...they would admit their failures and resign,,,,But...they are all greedy crooks so don''t look for that to happen ....it will just take time for the numbers to reach a certain level....the numbers of ruined Americans......And then revolution will be a serious possibility,,,,,, and with two lie wars going on.......who will stop millions of mad broke former middle class citizens from removing those in Washington by FORCE.

[tincup356]

Posted by ROTFLMMFAO at 06:55 PM : Jan 31, 2009..........do you approve of our rights being walked upon?