CHARLESTON, W.Va. - We’ve seen him play basketball, he has been teased mercilessly about his dismal bowling skills and he even pretended to take part in a 400-meter hurdles race at a track meet last week. But pool?

Barack Obama loves it. And he decided to spend part of a 6-hour campaign stop in West Virginia — just one day before the primary election there — playing pool.

“The sign of a misspent youth,” Obama joked as he walked around and eyed the table in the smoky Schultzie’s Billiards in South Charleston.

“Obviously I wasn’t doing wholesome things like bowling,” Obama added to laughter, referring to a horrible showing in the bowling alley during a stop in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago.

The days of his youth came back quickly in the game against against Paul Scott, a local army veteran of the Iraq war. From the opening break, Obama sank several good shots — drawing some shouts of ‘whoa’ from the steadily growing crowd.

“Oh, it worked,” he said after he made one particularly tricky shot that sunk a ball into the opposite corner pocket. He also hammed it up for the crowd of photographers: contorting himself as he played with the idea of a behind-the-back shot.

The men played a gentleman’s game of pool, continuing on even though Obama sank the 8-ball early on. ”That’s what you’re supposed to do with a senator,” he said to his opponent as they kept playing.

After Scott sank his final ball with one of Obama’s remaining, the presidential candidate shook his hand and patted him on the back.

“I didn’t embarrass myself,” Obama said, then went on to the business of campaigning during his final minutes in the state.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama plays basketball during a campaign stop in Indiana on May 4) 

BEAVERTON, Oregon (Reuters) - The battle for the Democratic nomination has been long and tiring. So much so that Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama seemed to forget how many states were in the United States.

“Over the last fifteen months, we’ve travelled to every corner of the United States,” the Illinois senator said during a campaign event in Beaverton, Oregon.

“I’ve now been in 57 states, I think — one left to go,” Obama said. “Alaska and Hawaii I was not allowed to go to … my staff could not justify it,” he added after hearing laughter from the audience.

Obama apparently did not realize that he had said 57, instead of 47, states visited so far.

“It sure seems like there are 57 states,” a travel-weary campaign aide said after the event. 

Obama has actually been to 46 U.S. states so far during the campaign. He has not visited South Dakota, Arkansas, Alaska or Hawaii, an aide said.

The Illinois senator and his rival, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, have criss-crossed the country as they vie for the Democratic presidential nomination. The winner will face Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain in November’s general election.

Photo credit: Reuters/Steve Dipaola (Obama speaks about economy in Beaverton, Oregon) 

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PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - “Team Obama. Yeah — that’s what I’m talking about,” said Barack Obama, clapping his hands rapidly.

No, he wasn’t standing in front of a crowded rally full of chanting supporters or cheering after hearing results of the tight battle with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

This was the Illinois senator on a plane from Washington to Oregon after playing — and winning — a guessing game called “Taboo” that pitted Obama and his staff against reporters.

Though slow to catch on to the game, in which one player has to get his team to guess a word without saying certain “taboo” words as clues, Obama reveled in the competition.

“Team Obama’s looking solid. Looking solid,” he cheered his team on after a few rounds.

But he clearly wanted to know the parameters, and ensure he had an exit strategy.

“At what point is this game over?” he asked. When told it was when someone wins he said “that sounds familiar.”

Obama admitted that the generation gap hampered his ability to give good clues to his mostly young staff.

He confounded his teammates with this clue: “Thomas Jefferson called for this to happen every once in a while.” When he saw the blank stares, Obama acknowledged that it was “too obscure” and then said “The Beatles had a song about it.”

Eventually, someone guessed the word: Revolution.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obamas wave to crowd at rally) 
    

While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton criss-cross North Carolina hunting for votes ahead of the May 6 Democratic primary election, one prominent resident of the state is missing: John Edwards.

He’s gone to Disneyworld, for a long-planned vacation with his family.

Edwards, who withdrew from his second presidential race in January, has not yet endorsed a candidate, though both Clinton and Obama have wooed him.

Though they’re supposedly away from the political infighting while at Disneyworld, Edwards’ wife Elizabeth is keeping her feet wet.

Elizabeth, who has had a recurrence of breast cancer, is now a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, specializing in health care. While at Cinderella’s Castle she took a  break for a phone call to talk with colleagues about Republican John McCain’s health care plan.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Lee Celano (Edwards waves as he walks with his family before announcing he would withdraw from U.S. presidential race) 

COLUMBIA, S.C. - For Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, even the press credentials have to send a message.

When journalists arrived at Edwards’ primary night party location to pick up credentials, they found an interesting quote on them: ”Representing the Grown-Up Wing of the Democratic Party”.

Edwards, who was born in South Carolina and needs a win in the state since he has yet to place first in the early voting contests, accused his two Democratic opponents, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, of squabbling instead of talking about policy during the last debate earlier this week that was seen as extremely contentious.

The 54-year-old former senator from North Carolina has seized on tit-for-tat attacks between Clinton and Obama as a chance to urge voters to choose him because he is a “grown-up”. 

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Chris Keane

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s post-caucus party sounded more like a soccer match than a political celebration after the first-term senator from Illinois was declared the winner in Iowa’s Democratic caucus.

“O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma” they yelled.

Then they began chanting what has become the unofficial slogan of the campaign:

“Fired Up”

“Ready to go”

Over and over and over again.

Reuters broke the news to Barack Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod that television networks were calling a victory for his candidate.

“That’s great news,” he said. “Obviously this turnout has been beyond anybody’s expectations. I think there was a hunger for change in this country,” Obama chief strategist David Axelrod told Reuters.

Obama supporters were let into the site of the campaign’s after-caucus party shortly after the networks began calling the race.

“Ole Ole Ole Ole, Obama, Ole,” they chanted as they watched the television screens.

All the yelling at rowdy rallies has finally taken its toll on Barack Obama’s voice, but the Democratic presidential hopeful says he feels great ahead of tonight’s caucus vote.

Accompanied by his wife Michelle, Obama stopped by a downtown Des Moines food court at lunchtime and was mobbed by well-wishers and media.

Shocked diners looked up to see Obama enter through a back door and supporters started applauding and yelled out “WHOOO!!”, then mobbed the first-term senator from Illinois.

Obama spent about 30 minutes signing autographs, urging people to vote and answering questions that ranged from his tax plan, what values he feels are important in a Supreme Court nominee to healthcare reform.

“Everybody’s got to caucus,” he said to people as he greeted them and received well wishes. The caucus vote on Thursday night launches the state-by-state elections to pick nominees from each party for November’s White House race.

“I’ve been to every caucus since 1972 and I’m most excited about this one,” Karen Ritchie, a 67-year-old from Des Moines, told Obama.

Obama, who told Radio Iowa he plans to drink a concoction including lemon and ginger to help revive his vocal chords as the New Hampshire primary is five days away, gave only a short answer when asked how he was doing ahead of the vote — “I feel great, although my throat…” and pointed to his neck.

He left to shouts of “good luck” from people in the crowd.

– Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young

DAVENPORT, Iowa - As Iowa shivered in frigidly cold temperatures, die-hard political supporters still headed out to campaign for their favorite candidates.

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama sounded like a concerned parent when he gave some volunteers a little advice before they headed out to knock on doors to try to drum up support for the Illinois senator one day before Iowa’s first-in-the nation vote.

“You guys have your long-johns on?” he asked a couple hundred warmly-dressed supporters who yelled back “YEAH!”

“Good, ’cause it’s feeling a little brisk outside,” said Obama, as the temperature in Davenport hovered around 2 degrees Fahrenheit and a sharp wind made it feel even colder.

“It’ll be good for you — gets your blood flowing. Walk quick. Talk fast,” he said to chants of “yeah” from the warmly dressed crowd packed into a gymnasium.

Two women from Illinois, who traveled to Davenport to help Obama’s cause, said they weren’t fazed by the weather.

“I don’t care. I have a warm coat,” said one woman, who would not identify herself because she said the campaign told her not to talk to reporters. “I love this guy.”

Temperatures across Iowa were stuck in the single- or low-double-digits on Wednesday as campaign supporters made one last frenetic effort to convince people to vote for their candidate in Thursday’s caucuses.

– Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young

JEFFERSON, Iowa — Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama likes to joke about getting seasoned and stewed.

In speeches across Iowa in the final days before the state’s Jan. 3 caucus that kicks off the 2008 presidential nominating contest, Obama regularly gets laughs and applause when he makes a clear dig at opponents like Sen. Hillary Clinton who say the first-term senator from Illinois is too inexperienced to be president.

“There have been some who say … ‘He may be inspiring and you like his ideas but you know what, he has not been in Washington long enough,’” Obama said.

“‘We need to season him a little bit more. We need to stew him and boil all the hope out of him so he can sound like everybody else.’”

Obama then leads into one of the speech lines that generates the most applause, focusing on how he is the candidate that represents change.

“I have to admit that some people have even said that electing me right now without that Washington longevity that that would be a gamble, a roll of the dice,” he said.

“But let me tell you something … the real gamble right now would be to have the same old folks do the same old things over and over and over again and somehow expect a different outcome,” Obama said.

– Photo credit: Reuters/Keith Bedford