Presidential free time?

OK, I'm admittedly a little obsessed with the President's visit to my hometown a couple of weeks ago. The local paper interviewed the owners of the inn where the President went for lunch after his speech. He was supposed to stay there for 2 hours, but wound up hanging out for 4 hours. And he hand-wrote a thank you note to the inn owners later that day. He has manners & is human, but I'm still questioning whether this trip was the best use of his time. (The candidate he was campaigning for lost the election.)