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) 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - As Barack Obama gains momentum in his battle with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination, there are signs that the scrappy New York senator’s inner fighter may be giving way to the uniter who will knit the fractured party back together once the bruising nomination process ends. 

But parsing her recent campaign speeches from West Virginia and South Dakota to Oregon and Kentucky, Clinton does not appear ready to give up the fight just yet.  

At a speech late on Friday here, Clinton appeared initially to aim for a conciliatory tone toward Obama, only mentioning her challenger to draw comparisons between women and blacks — two groups that she said had suffered greatly under the original U.S. Constitution written by America’s founders. 

“Neither Senator Obama nor I nor many of you were fully included in the vision of our founders,” Clinton said.

“We’re here for one reason - to make sure the next president is a Democrat,” Clinton told the dinner held by the Kentucky Democratic Party. “Once we have a nominee I know in my heart we will come together as a party.”

But later in the speech she used very specific pronouns: calling for “a Democratic president who will roll up her sleeves and get to work for all of you.”

A day earlier in Charleston, West Virginia, Clinton had dismissed calls for her to drop out of the race as “déjà vu all over again,”  and recalled similar entreaties before she won the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. 

“There are people who said we need to end this before we get to West Virginia. Well, I don’t think so,” Clinton said. “I was never supposed to win Indiana.” 

Clinton has vowed to continue running until the voting concludes on June 3, but she and campaign aides have hinted she would step aside if it is clear that Obama will be the nominee. 

So which is it? Hillary the Fighter or Hillary the Uniter? Time will tell.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Chris Baltimore (A Clinton supporter holds up boxing gloves at fundraiser in New York City.)

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Is Republican John McCain’s age an issue? Only if the American public want to make it one, the senior Arizona senator told reporters on Friday.
 
“I don’t take offense to it … If that’s what the American people want to discuss, that’s fine,” said McCain, who turns 72 in August and would be the oldest first-term president ever.
 
“I will continue to introduce them to my 96-year-old mother and display the same vigor and energy that I have been able to display throughout this campaign which allowed me to win the nomination of my party.”
 
To that end, the campaign is launching a television commercial on Mother’s Day on Sunday, showing McCain with his still vigorous mother, Roberta.
 
The commercial, dubbed “Johnny’s Mom,” shows mother and son chatting about his birth at a U.S. Navy base in Panama, where his father served as an officer.
 
“I’m told that on the table were 27 bottles of scotch, all presents to Johnny,” she said.
 
The issue of the Arizona senator’s age is a sensitive one for the campaign.
 
It sparked a dust-up this week after Democratic rival Barack Obama suggested McCain had “lost his bearings” after commenting that Islamist Palestinian group Hamas favors Obama for president.
    
A McCain adviser accused Obama, 46, of trying to raise the Republican candidate’s age as an issue, a charge denied by Obama’s campaign.
    
McCain revisited the issue on Friday. Hamas’ apparent favor for Obama was also of interest to American voters, he said.
 
“I think that’s of interest to the American people and that is something that needs to be discussed — why his policies should meet the approval of a spokesperson for Hamas. I believe it’s a legitimate point of discussion.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Chris Keane (McCain speaks at a campaign event in Charlotte, N.C., May 5, 2008) 

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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WASHINGTON - Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are often described by many in the party as the dream team to recapture the White House in 2008 regardless who is atop the ticket. 

Clinton, whose presidential bid has been faltering in recent weeks, had previously hinted that she was open to the idea.  And now as Obama closes in on winning the party’s presidential nomination, he has not closed the door on Clinton as his vice presidential running mate.

If Clinton fails to mount a come-from-behind win, will her supporters be satisfied with the No. 2 spot and will Obama’s backers fear that she could hurt his chances of capturing the White House or possibly upstage him?

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NEW YORK - Rev. Al Sharpton called on Hillary Clinton to drop out of the Democratic presidential race, likening her to an entertainer who doesn’t know when to leave the stage.

“Not dropping out would mean ruining the party,” the civil rights leader told New York 1 television on Thursday night. “I think Barack Obama’s the nominee. I think he’s won. The majority of Democrats have already decided.”

Sharpton, a failed Democratic candidate in 2004, has yet to endorse any candidate for the November election though he has been actively courted by Obama and Clinton.

He has natural ties to both Democratic candidates: his National Action Network is based in New York City and Clinton is a U.S. senator from New York state. And he has also championed causes for African Americans, and if elected Obama, a senator from Illinois, would be America’s first black president.

But his latest words suggest an endorsement might not be necessary in the nomination battle.

“As you know, I’ve been in the ministry of civil rights all my life, but had dealings with entertainers because of James Brown,” Sharpton said. “The worst thing in the world is when an entertainer doesn’t know when the show is over. The audience is gone, the lights are down, you’re getting ready to cut the mics off and you are still on the stage singing. It’s over, it’s all right, it’s over. Come sing another day, but this show is over for Sen. Clinton.”  

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Segar

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) 
    

WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton got a rapturous response from a mostly female audience at a fundraiser on Wednesday evening. Many in the audience urged her to stay in the race for the Democratic White House nomination against rival Barack Obama. 

But at least two demonstrators dissented, standing and interrupting her speech before being led out of the room. 

Clinton, a senator from New York, was not thrown off.  “I welcome that,” she said, saying strong opinions were part of the American birthright. “It’s who we are.” 

The former first lady, who disclosed earlier that she loaned another $6.4 million to her campaign, said she hoped the protestors made another kind of contribution in addition to disrupting her remarks.  “I hope they paid to come.”

DETROIT - No stranger to criticism of the U.S. auto industry, Barack Obama made it personal this week when he singled out his candidate for Detroit’s “worst car” ever: the 1970s-era Ford Granada.

The cutting comment came in an interview with an Indiana radio station and then was picked up by the Detroit News, seized on as a talking point for Detroit radio and stirring debate in Internet chat rooms as of Wednesday.

Obama said he had learned to drive first on his grandfather’s Ford Granada, a boxy, big-engined sedan that Ford once tried to market as a kind of Everyman’s Mercedes-Benz.

The Illinois senator did not remember it so fondly.

“It may be the worst car that Detroit ever built. This thing was a tin can. It was during the ’70s when oil had just gone up so they were trying to compete with the Japanese. They wanted to keep the cars big, so they made them out of tin foil,” he was quoted as saying. “It would rattle and shake. You basically couldn’t go over 80 (miles per hour) without the thing getting out of control.”

Fans of the Granada, which made a cameo in last year’s Academy Award-winning drama “No Country for Old Men,” rushed to the defense of a car killed with little fanfare 25 years ago.

“I’m a Barack voter but I disagree with him on the Granada,” said Jesse Sweigart, a 32-year-old computer engineer in Columbia, Pennsylvania.

Sweigart said his 31-year-old Ford Granada, bought on a whim for $400 over a year ago, runs like a dream and gets better gas mileage than his newer Dodge truck. “They really put things together back then,” he said.

Tom Peterson, another enthusiast, said Obama was wrong to suggest the big Ford featured flimsy “tin foil” since it was a heavyweight in its late 1970s heyday. “If Obama actually said this, it sounds like (a) politician gum-flapping based on no knowledge,” he said.

“Here comes Granadagate,” wrote one Web poster. “We should invite Barack to drive a couple of our rides. Time heals all wounds.”

Sweigart offered to let Obama take a spin down memory land if the presidential campaign takes him back to Pennsylvania.

“I think if he got behind the wheel it would all come back,” he said. “I’d be happy to give him a ride to the next state.”

In the meantime, Obama may have some damage control ahead with voters in Michigan’s still auto-heavy economy. The Michigan Democratic delegation remains in play ahead of the party convention in August, and polls show Republican John McCain as a strong challenger to Obama in a prospective match-up in the 8th most populous state.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Ellen Ozier (U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speaks to supporters at his North Carolina and Indiana primary election night rally in Raleigh)

NEW YORK - The waiting is over.
 
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said he will be running for president of the highest office of the land with a guy from “The Office.”
 
At a taping of the Daily Show in New York on Wednesday, the Arizona senator gave presenter Jon Stewart the scoop on his vice presidential pick.
 
“You heard it here first, Dwight Schrute.”
 
Dwight Schrute is a fictional character on NBC’s sleeper hit “The Office,” portrayed by actor Rainn Wilson, who plays a salesman at a paper goods distribution company.
 
The character is an assistant to the regional manager with ideas above his station. He longs to lord it over others and relishes any minor task given to him.
 
Stewart shot back that he had a better idea. 
 
“You know who your running mate should be if you want to win this election? Senator Hillary Clinton … Don’t you think that’s a great idea?”
 
McCain was unimpressed.
 
“It’s one I’ve never contemplated.”