So Obama has taken up bowling, hot dogs and beer to appeal to mainstream Americans

kinggovernor · 03-31-2008, 10:44 AM

he has been polling low with blue collar workers. So he made a stop at a small town bowling alley for a photo op. Only one problem, he bowled a 37

Clinton's Wolfson mocks Obama's bowling

ON THE BUS BETWEEN HARRISBURG and LANCASTER, Penn. — Cable news was all over Sen. Barack Obama's weekend photo op at an Altoona bowling alley. His excuse for bowling a 37 during the Saturday campaign stop was that it had been three decades since he last engaged in the sport.

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough quipped that higher scores would be found at an 8-year-old's birthday party. He also proposed the Democratic nomination could be settled by a bowl-off between Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson didn't say no to the idea, and joined in to mock his rival's bowling skills.

"It didn't look like Senator Obama brought his A-game to the bowling alley," Wolfson said.

Joking aside, here are some of the best excerpts from the pool report:

[Obama] and [Sen. Bob] Casey changed their dress shoes for bowling shoes — blue and white Velcro for Obama, size 13 1/2, and a more traditional red and blue (with Day-Glo green laces) for Casey.

...

Bowling first, Casey, taking what Obama had declared to be a practice roll, sent his ball off to the left gutter. "Uh oh! Uh oh!" Obama shouted. "He did that on purpose, so I won't look bad." But Obama had already told the afternoon gaggle that he's not a good bowler, and your pooler has the sad duty to inform you that he was true to his word. He picked up a ball, held it reasonably confidently, approached the lane and … sent it off to the gutter on the right. "We're just warming up," he said.

...

At one point, Nick, an 8-year-old standing nearby, offered to give Obama some pointers. Instead, Obama let Nick roll one ball for him. ("Fist bump!" Obama ordered Nick afterwards.) Other kids started asking to play with them, and he invited them to join in. "We're going to keep on going until we get a strike," Obama said.

...

Most of Obama's shots were more or less down the center of the lane, but he rolled them too slowly to knock down more than six or seven pins at a time. "You notice I'm getting better," he said. At one point, he jokingly asked for a tip from a Secret Service agent.

...

Obama knocked down nine pins with one ball. "Almost!" he shouted. "I almost had it!"
"Let me tell you something," Obama said, turning to the crowd. "My economic plan is better than my bowling." A man standing at the next lane over called out, "It has to be." Laughing, Obama walked over and hugged him. Finally, in the seventh frame, Obama made a spare, cleaning up one pin left standing with his second ball. "Yes I can!" he started chanting, after a couple of admirers at a nearby lane started it. "Yes I can!" He and Casey changed out of their shoes. "Alright, I'm quitting now, that's it, that's it," Obama said. He signed two bowling pins for the alley's owners.
— Mike Madden, Salon.com
— Sasha Issenberg, The Boston Globe

reminds me of the "supermarket scanner" with Bush in 1992.

David Octavius · 03-31-2008, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

he has been polling low with blue collar workers. So he made a stop at a small town bowling alley for a photo op. Only one problem, he bowled a 37

reminds me of the "supermarket scanner" with Bush in 1992.

Lame photo-ops are what all the candidates do - to point out an instance of Obama doing it as if its unique to this election is in itself pretty lame