This bud's for you

Newsweek magazine says Obama has a "Bubba gap," a reference to his weaker performance among working-class voters than among "educated" voters.

Here's how reporter Andrew Romano described Obama's beer drinking detour on Friday: "Visiting VFW Post 1954 in North Liberty, Ind. yesterday evening for a 'mix and mingle' photo op, Obama suddenly had nothing but booze on the brain. 'I'm going to see if I might get a beer in there,' he announced, unprovoked, as he strode through the parking lot--with an armada of pool photographers in tow. Arriving inside, the senator immediately told the crowd why he'd come: 'I'm not going to give a speech or anything, I just want to stop by ... and maybe get a beer as well.' Still, he managed to shake a few hands--before abruptly noticing that the cameramen were 'blocking the bartender.' 'I'm going to have a Bud,' he declared."

It's not unusual for a politician to have a beer on the campaign trail, but Romano says that Obama's photo op may look a bit hypocritical. Last month in Pittsburgh, the candidate seemed to criticize Hillary Clinton for staging her own beer drinking photo op.

"Around election time, the candidates can't do enough for you," he said then. "They'll promise you anything, give you a long list of proposals and even come around, with TV crews in tow, to throw back a shot and a beer." 

Both candidates seem to go back and forth on the all-important beer issue. Although Clinton was tossing down the beer in Pennsylvania last month, the month before she was challenging the whole beer drinking test for the presidency.  "We need to know as specifically as possible what our next president intends to do," she said then. "We don't need a leap of faith, we don't need to have a beer with the next president, we had that president," she said.

So both candidates are walking a fine line to try to get the votes of beer drinkers without looking too much like they're pandering. But just in case anyone had any doubt that the Obama campaign wanted the blue collar beer drinking image out there, several pictures of the candidate and can were posted on the candidate's Flickr photo page.

The Flickr page also featured recent pictures of the candidate shooting hoops, passing out pies, and sitting down with senior citizens. All in the name of democracy.