Update at 3:26 p.m. ET -

Obama got his ribs after all. While the President did not stop by the 12 Bones BBQ joint, as he suggested during his speech in Asheville, a White House official told the traveling press pool that White House staffers picked up barbecue "for the President and staff to enjoy on the way back to Washington, DC."

ASHEVILLE - After steering clear of North Carolina for most of the 2012 campaign, President Obama today held up the Tar Heel state has a poster child for his economic vision and "signs of solid progress" that developed during his first term.

Reprising the themes of his State of the Union address, Obama touted a resurgence in American manufacturing jobs and calling for steps to keep the trend going: expanding manufacturing institutes across the states; reform the corporate tax code; and boost worker training to match them with open high-skilled jobs.