From a "Bowling With Bubba" campaign appearance in central Pennsylvania (Barack wearing an expensive suit and bowling shoes!!) to grabbing a hotdog at the local D.Q. with the blue-collar set (I kept waiting for him to ask for Grey Poupon mustard!!) to doing the walk-through on an assembly-line in a core-voter factory setting ("Show of hands; how many of you graduated from my school...Harvard?"), Barack Obama looked like the proverbial fish out of water.

I wonder what's next on the campaign trail...John McCain break-dancing? Oy...vey!

John Kerry was being interviewed on South Coast Today.Com (HTP:/www.YouTube.com/watch?v..) This expression "taken out of context" seems to be a favourite in the English-speaking world as it is the constant refrain of slippery politicians in my own country when faced with awkward questions, sometimes by the media, the Opposition and less frequently by the electorate who have very little say in anything until vote-casting time comes around. The context in which John Kerry was speaking was Obama's "cachet" in the Muslim world, as Kerry perceived it, because he is "a black man" (direct quote). I don't have the faintest idea what Kerry meant by referring to Egypt and Jordan. The leader of the jihadists, Mohammad Atta, who attacked New York in 200l was an Egyptian. Despite your thinly-veiled hostility, Xrandadu Hutman, the whole world has an interest in the American election in an unprecedented way, for obvious reasons. My impression of John Kerry's statement re. Barack Obama and foreign policy was that Kerry's comments were superficial, even ludicrous. I hope I'm allowed to have an opinion, at the very least, and if it doesn't tally with yours that's what democracy is all about. I have to go now.

When, oh when, oh when is the Ignore feature coming? I can't even stomach the comments section anymore.

The South Side of Chicago is pretty down to earth.

You ought to get out of the house now and then. Maybe then you might figure out your constant negative stereotyping is not only erroneous it's not close to witty.

Obama could end up making the mistake of coming across as condescending if he isn't careful here. Blue Collar doesn't mean stupid, or uncultured or any of that.

Heck most blue collar workers would probably see "taught constitutional law" as being in favour of Obama, it means that as a president, when he vetos something for not being constitutional or for being a threat to a constitutional concept he may just know what he is talking about.

He needs to tread a thin line so as to avoid looking like certain elderly white guys do when they try to talk "Street." If McCain started trying to speak in modern day slang he would lose votes - it would be seen as a lack of respect.

Obama runs the same risk here.

...and you Hillary people are STILL going to lose.

But Hillary's story about Bosnia makes me more likely to view Sinbad favorably. Do I smell VP choice?

If she didn't CRY LIKE A BABY in New Hampshire she never would have made it out of that state. But ya gotta have pride to make it in politics, right?

Oh, and I like how she "battled for healthcare" in the 90's! When she took a week to pitch it, was so bad at it that she was overwhelmingly rejected, and then hid in the White House basement for 7 years. Yeah, that is the consensus-builder we need at the helm! Face it, she's a quitter at the one thing that mattered. She'll quit again.

And as for meeting with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review - enough said. I loved how she "was just answering the question" about Rev. Wright - YET SHE READ HER ANSWER OFF AN INDEX CARD!!! I loved it, she can't even race-bait without being thoroughly scripted.

What the Rev. Wright thing is all about - and why Hillary and her supporters keep bringing it up - is to play on America's racial fears. "See - black men ARE scary...and don't let Obama fool you, he's a black man. Be scared of him!" Ya gotta have pride, right Hillary supporters?!?

I have more respect for W supporters than Hillary's, at least they know they are amoral scumbags and CHOOSE not to care as long as they get the tax cut. Hill's supporters just delude themselves into thinking they're righteous.

And as a Philadelphian, let me tell you - that Rendell and Nutter endorsement don't mean anything here.

"some designer beer," coining a new phrase...

That is not a new phrase.

Wasn't that quote by Tip On'Neill?

To be honest, what Kerry thinks or says is of supreme indifference to me.

The guy lost in 2004 to what amounts to an insult to chimps, for being too boring. What makes you think any of us give a shit now?

Make him stop.

As a Pennsylvanian, I see things here on the ground that just aren't making it into the national narrative - things that speak well to Barack's chances in PA. Such as:

- my 80-year old Catholic mother from Berks County (raised in small-town south-central PA near Gettysburg), who hasn't voted for a Dem since Carter, proclaimed to me that she'd vote for Obama, "I don't care what color he is" (!). She said this back when he announced, and she repeated it again in recent weeks. (Please forgive her language - she'd never even *seen* a black person until she was in her twenties...)

- my 50 year-old brother from Reading, also very Catholic, actually switched his registration from Republican to vote for Obama, out of conviction (no, he's not some Limbaugh sabateur). He's the kind of white male who was supposed to be irrevocably lost to BO because of the Wright affair, but the Philly speech strengthened his support even more. His Catholic Republican wife is also on board - not least because of her opposition to No Child Left Behind (she's a teacher) but also because she appreciates Obama's candor and appeal to our better nature as a nation.

- my brother-in-law out in Lancaster Co., who's actually a Republican District Justice, hasn't switched his registration, but he and his wife have been enamored of Obama since reading his books and are leaning his way in the general.

I could go on and on (my neighborhood in NW Philly is Obama country through and through), but my point is this: Obama may well do much better than expected. PA is not nearly as depressed as Ohio, with 3% economic growth this decade (compared to something like .5% in Ohio). There's also an intelligent electorate that isn't always measured by stats like the number of college degrees (half of my 10 siblings don't have BAs but follow politics and are pretty well-informed). Obama-mania is not just a phenomenon of Philly and the colleges here - he has broad appeal in places you might not expect because of his candor, poise, and yes, his intelligence and charisma.

And Yuengling is not some boutique beer! It's from America's oldest continuously operating brewery, proudly brewed in Pottsville since 1829 - and the cheap beer of choice for Pennsylvanians for generations....