Obama at the Sports Bar
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., talks as he eats a chicken wing at Murads' Sports Bar in Charleston, W.Va., March 20, 2008. (AP.)
By Jonathan Weisman
CHARLESTON, W.V. -- Barack Obama went trolling for votes with the white working class voters that have always given him trouble, in the best place he could find them -- a sports bar in the full bloom of March Madness.
"I'm fishing for a few votes around here. At least I can show off my basketball knowledge," he confessed at Murad's on 35th Street, on a muddy street in Charleston.
Over limp chicken wings and the blare of basketball, Obama and the Murads' patrons talked bracketology, energy policy, health care and hot sauce.
Jeff Lynch, 48, a Michigander passing through, asked him when he'd have a chance to vote for him, and Obama did not mince words. As far as he was concerned, the hopes of a revote in Michigan are over.
"Probably the general election. A re-do vote is very complicated," he shrugged.
Obama's basketball picks were admittedly impolitic, at least locally. He gave the West Virginia Mountaineers no chance to beat the University of Arizona tonight.
Obama took some ribbing for his choice of Pitt to go to the Final Four, just ahead of the Pennsylvania primary, but he insisted he had no ulterior motives. "They're peaking at the right time."
How does he know so much?
"When you get back to the hotel, I don't watch the games. I watch Sports Center," he said, "because you definitely don't watch a bunch of news," he added, gesturing to the crush of cameras around him. "I don't want to watch myself."
What he didn't seem too thrilled with were the wings, which were on the pale side. He took one -- reluctantly, then gamely offered, "That's a pretty tasty wing. I don't know if the hot sauce is all that hot."
It might just be working. Derek Buzzard, 30, a burley paralegal with a shaved head and earrings, seemed impressed.
"I just came to catch a game on TV," Buzzard said. "I think he might be able to do it. I like him."
Posted at 5:51 PM ET on Mar 20, 2008
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Posted by: jreno18 | March 23, 2008 3:45 PM
OK, Obama knows basketball, knows it from the inside out.
But does he know how to throw out the first pitch of a baseball season?
Posted by: FirstMouse | March 22, 2008 2:58 PM
I could tell some of the sports bar patrons were not enthused to speak with Obama. The example that sticks out th most is the little boy getting an autograph from Obama and doesn't even mouth a thank-you...wow, my mom would have scolded me for not using my manners.
Posted by: PolitikalPrincess | March 21, 2008 12:29 PM
Obama went trolling for votes at the sports bar but he was using the net that Rev Wright cut that big old hole in. Darn!
Posted by: brigittepj | March 21, 2008 11:54 AM
Actually, Obama predicted that WVU would beat Arizona (which they did). I'm not sure where you get the comment regarding "no chance" versus Arizona based on the comments he made here locally in Charleston and Beckley, WV.
Obama's bracket has been posted online here.
Posted by: jim_mckay | March 21, 2008 8:34 AM
"Obama's basketball picks were admittedly impolitic, at least locally. He gave the West Virginia Mountaineers no chance to beat the University of Arizona tonight."
WV 75-AZ 65. Oh well, you win some (the Democratic nomination) and you lose some...
Posted by: whatmeregister | March 21, 2008 2:12 AM
"A re-do vote is very complicated," he shrugged.
Substitute, "not to my advantage" for "complicated" for the honest answer.
Posted by: edbyronadams | March 20, 2008 7:36 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
Obama's efforts to connect to the Republican Party, specifically Bush, and Dick Chaney, of the Halliburton Company, dates back to the Presidents Grandfather, Prescott Bush, and indeed Chaney was once an executive officer of Halliburton.
The American military pounds Iraq with Artillary, bombs, and the like, destroying large sections of cities, and infra-structures, then Halliburton comes in to rebuild. Halliburton and Halliburton associated companies have raked in ten's of billions.
Obama is just like the BIG HALIBURTAN. Haliburton has contracted to build detention centers in the U.S. similiar to the one in Quantanammo Bay, Cuba. Halliburton does nothing to earn the Two Dollars for each meal an American Serviceman in Iraq eats.
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/
Halliburton was scheduled to take control of the Dubai Ports in The United Arab Emiirate. The deal was canceled when Bush was unable to affect the transfer of the American Ports.
Now we see what some might suspect as similiar financial escapading from the Democrats.
Two years ago, Iraq's Ministry of Electricity gave a $50 million contract to a start-up security company - Companion- owned by now-indicted businessman (TONY REZKO) Tony Rezko and a onetime Chicago cop, Daniel T. Frawley, to train Iraqi power-plant guards in the United States. An Iraqi leadership change left the deal in limbo. Now the company, Companion Security, is working to revive its contract.
Involved along with Antoin "Tony" Rezco, long time friend and neighbor of Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, and former cop Daniel T. Frawley, is Aiham Alsammarae. Alsammarae was accused of financial corruption by Iraqi authorities and jailed in Iraq last year before escaping and returning here.
LIKE FATHER LIKE SON --
Recently, Obama's campaign staff have been vetted by the IRS to disclose his connection to the criminal money generating underworld. Besides, his connections to the REZCO MAFIA types, his up-coming tax fraud charges -- Obama needs to disclose why he is a MUSLIM "PATWANG-FWEEE" and disclose Obama's MUSLIM Farrakhan mob connection to Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Its minister, and Obama's spiritual adviser, is the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. In 1982, the church launched Trumpet Newsmagazine; Wright's daughters serve as publisher and executive editor. Every year, the magazine makes awards in various categories. Last year, it gave the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award to a man it said "truly epitomized greatness." That man is Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan and Chicago's Trinity United Church are trumpeting Barack Obama AKA Barack Hussein Obama as the second coming of the messiah. Obama should stop suppoting our intervention in IRAQ. It's time to introduce this false, fake Xerox - X box Obama and invite the self-indicting thief plagiarizing pipsqueke "GLORK" Xerox - X box to meet the Buffalo "GAZOWNT-GAZIKKA" Police Department Buffalo Creek. He is MAD!!! --
OBAM YOU'RE NO JFK --
"GLORK" Obama looks like Alfred E. Newman: "Tales Calculated To Drive You." He is a MUSLIM "Glork" He's MAD!!! Alfred E. Neuman is the fictional mascot of Mad. The face had drifted through American pictography for decades before being claimed by Mad editor Harvey Kurtzman after he spotted it on the bulletin board in the office of Ballantine Books editor Bernard Shir-Cliff, later a contributor to various magazines created by Kurtzman.
Obama needs to disclose why he is a MUSLIM "PATWANG-FWEEE" and stop suppoting our intervention in IRAQ. It's time to introduce this false, fake "GLORK" Xerox - X box Obama and invite the self-indicting thief plagiarizing pipsqueke Xerox - X box to meet the Buffalo "GAZOWNT-GAZIKKA" Police Department Buffalo Creek.
Michelle Obama should be ashamed.
"GLORK" Michelle Obama should be ashamed of her separatist-racist connection to Farrakhan and Chicago's Trinity United Church trumpeting Barack Obama AKA Barack Hussein Obama as the second coming of the messiah. If Michelle Obama new what her husband -- the Hope-A-Dope, Fonster Monster -- Barack Obama AKA Barack Hussein Obama did in Harlem, she would wash her wide-open, Hus-suey loving MUSILM mouth out, with twenty-four (24) mule-team double-cross X-boX-BorraX. He is a MUSLIM "Glork" It's time to introduce this false, fake "GLORK" Xerox - X box Obama and invite the self-indicting thief plagiarizing pipsqueke Xerox - X box to meet the Buffalo "GAZOWNT-GAZIKKA" Police Department Buffalo Creek. He's MAD!!!
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/
THE SPEECH --
The Apologia has arrived and once again the self-indicting, separatist-racist Barack Obama AKA Barack Hussein Obama, promises to heal the wounds of the world. The speech is the rude awakening of mass messianism of his campaign. Apologetically, Obama the MUSLIM double-cross X-boX-BorraX has an astonishingly empty two-prawn echelon explanation of his misjudgment.
In the first prawn: with regard to his connection to separatist-racist Rev. Wright; Obama summons voodoo and juju to express slavery as beginning and ending with the Rev. Wright.
In the second prawn: Obama's speech takes credit for Ashley's dream. A dream of unity Martin Luther King, Jr. borrowed from Ashley for his historic "I Have A Dream" speech. In Obama's speech, the connective bond Ashley, the elderly black man and Obama's grandmother share; represents Obama's self-indicting rise to the Harvard Yard. For Obama, the grand flag of language is the semi-fore of words, bestowed upon our nation by the messiah-alumni from Harvard. Obama's Swoon-Song Apologia to the nation represents a failed hymn -- a hymn that fails to heal the nation, repair the world, or make this time different than all the rest. Obama's speech is a brilliant failure.
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/