Tales from the Trail

OTTAWA – As if he were out on the campaign trail again, Barack Obama gave a special thanks on Thursday to people who helped him win the 2008 U.S. presidential election — in Canada.
 
The president, on a visit to the United States’ northern neighbor, ended a news conference with Prime Minister Stephen Harper by thanking Canadians who came across the border to volunteer for his campaign.
 
“I want to also, by the way, thank some of the Canadians who came over the border to campaign for me,” he said, to laughter. “It was much appreciated.”
 
After the news conference, the president made a campaign-style trip to a local market where he shook hands with excited shoppers and looked for souvenirs for his daughters.
 
But Obama, whose whole trip lasted just several hours, did slip up a bit — campaign style — at the beginning of his remarks.
 
When saying it was good to be in Ottawa, he stumbled briefly, and started to say “Iowa.”

-Photo credit: Reuters/ Larry Downing (Obama waves after shopping at Ottawa market, February 19, 2009)

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama doesn’t like sweets, prefers minty gum to bubblegum and leaves his luggage in everybody’s way when he arrives home on a break from the campaign.
That’s the scoop from the Democratic presidential candidate’s daughters from a family interview for television’s “Access Hollywood.”

  
Malia and Sasha Obama have joined their parents on the campaign trail a number of times in recent weeks. They spoke for the first time in the interview which began airing on Tuesday. 
“When he comes home and leaves his big gigantic bag in the mudroom, sometimes I trip over it,” said Malia, who celebrated her 10th birthday while the family campaigned in Butte, Montana, on Independence Day. 

“You always put your bag on my shoes,” seven-year-old Sasha scolded her father. 
The girls joined their mother in showing that the Illinois senator does not live up to his public imagine as a fashion plate.