Obama buscapade: bribe cookies, marinara mishaps, and hair with blue spikes
Ah, the presidential bus tour, filled with diners, handshakes, and delightfully unscripted ramblings. Here are Decoder's three favorite moments from President Obama's two-day trip.
President Obama trades hair-styling tips with a boy at the Kozy Corner diner in Oak Harbour, Ohio, Thursday. No word yet on what the 'product' was.
Susan Walsh/AP
President Obama鈥檚 bus tour this week was meant to rally his supporters and spread his economic message in the all-important swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. It was also a chance for Mr. Obama to get out of the confines of the White House and experience a taste of freedom on the road.
Not that you鈥檇 ever mistake a presidential motorcade for a couple of buddies heading for the lake camp in an old Subaru. But trips such as this always produce some genuine unscripted moments, despite the best efforts of advance personnel to make stops run as predictably as German railroads.
Here, culled from invaluable White House press pool reports, are some of our favorites from the week:
Broken (cookie) campaign promise.聽Food has played a big part in the trip, as it does in pretty much all political campaigning. Most politicians at least make a show of bemoaning the easy availability of sweets, saying they鈥檝e got to lose weight. Not so Obama. 鈥淚鈥檝e been eating a lot and people are commenting I need to gain weight,鈥� he said at one point.
Thus on Friday at around 1 p.m. the president of the United States strolled across Third Street in Beaver, Pa., and entered Kretchmar鈥檚 Bakery, a third-generation sweets-dispensing emporium.
The glass front displays were full of luscious cakes. Obama, however, went for a pie. 鈥淲e鈥檙e close to the Fourth of July, don鈥檛 you think apple pie is appropriate?鈥� he asked a Kretchmar employee.
鈥淢aybe I鈥檒l get some cookies,鈥� he added. 鈥淧ress, do you want some cookies?鈥�
Pool reporters were noncommittal.
鈥淲ill you consider this a bribe once again?鈥� said Obama. 鈥淲hy don鈥檛 we get a dozen chocolate chip cookies and send them on the press bus, and I won鈥檛 know if you guys ate them, all right? I know the photographers will eat them. Those guys have no shame.鈥�
Obama paid for pie and cookies with a crisp $20, and told employees to keep the change. After he returned to the bus, campaign officials trotted over to the media vehicle and delivered the promised goods.
鈥淎ides delivered cookies, but they weren鈥檛 chocolate chip,鈥� declared the pool report, drily.
Another campaign promise, broken.
Who's minding the marinara? Earlier on Friday POTUS made a stop at the Summer Garden Food Manufacturing plant in Boardman, Ohio. The event was meant to highlight increased hiring at the plant and its use of local produce to produce pasta sauces sold under the Mario Batali name, among other brands.
As Obama walked onto the factory floor he asked an employee to identify nearby ingredients.
鈥淚 smell a little oregano around here or something,鈥� said Obama.
In fact the goods in question were onions and garlic, cooking in a giant vat.
Obama strolled through the plant, chatting with employees. At one point he stopped to talk to workers who were attending a conveyor belt rolling with Gia Russa-brand marinara sauce.
The workers in question paid a little too much attention to standing in line for photos with POTUS. Cardboard boxes on the line got out of alignment and started crumpling until the line shut down automatically, as a red 鈥渇ault鈥� light shone.
Perhaps the Romney campaign will turn this into an ad about how the president鈥檚 celebrity status gets in the way of the economic recovery or something like that.
No, it grows that way. On Thursday the president鈥檚 traveling buscapade pulled up at the Kozy Corners in the little town of Oak Harbor, Ohio. On his way into this cash-only diner (specials start at $4.65) Obama stopped to talk to a little boy whose hair was fashioned into blue-tipped spikes. The youngster, according to the pool account of the event, was spellbound.
鈥淚 like that hair man. I was thinking of getting some hair like that,鈥� said Obama.
Yes, that would make an impression at the campaign debates in the fall, wouldn鈥檛 it?
Anyway, Obama touched the boy鈥檚 head. 鈥淲hat do you put in there to make it spiky?鈥� he asked. 鈥淧roduct?鈥�
The boy, apparently still in thrall to the moment, did not respond, and had to be prompted to shake the hand of the leader of what used to be called the free world.
鈥淧roduct鈥�? That鈥檚 what they call it in hair salons. A barber would call that 鈥渉air gel,鈥� if they referred to it at all.