Obama wraps up Pa. bus tour with 'some inroads'

He sipped a Yuengling in Latrobe; fiddled with a Slinky in Johnstown; tasted a chili dog and bowled a 37 in Altoona; fed a calf in State College; sampled homemade chocolates in Lititz; toured a garment factory in Allentown; and nibbled on cheese at Philadelphia's Italian Market.

Along the way Sen. Barack Obama introduced himself at town-hall meetings and informal visits to local haunts during a six-day tour across Pennsylvania that ended last night.

Obama made populist appeals to the working-class voters who have have been hesitant to support him in other states, hoping to cut into Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead ahead of Pennsylvania's April 22 Democratic primary.

"These kinds of tours keep me in touch," Obama said in an interview yesterday. "It gives me a better sense of what people are going through, and hopefully they get a better sense of who I am. . . . I think when you're in these big rallies, you don't get a chance to have those interactions and you don't hear stories from people."

A Quinnipiac Poll released yesterday indicated that Obama had narrowed the contest in the state. Clinton was leading among likely Democratic primary voters 50 percent to 41 percent, compared with mid-February, when the same poll found her lead was 16 percentage points.

"The tour generated substantial publicity everywhere he went, and no doubt is part of the reason the race seems to be tightening," said G. Terry Madonna, political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster.

Obama's 638-mile trip has been backed with $3 million worth of television advertising during the last two weeks.

"He is making some inroads, but it's still a tough state demographically for him," Madonna said. "We have large numbers of Catholics, elderly, union members and conservative Democrats."

Those groups have mostly supported Clinton in the drawn-out race for the Democratic nomination, and they handed her a vital victory in Ohio on March 4.

Obama was buoyed by the endorsement of Sen. Bob Casey, whose family name is considered a golden political brand, particularly in the Scranton region and in the west, both home to Reagan Democrats.

And, analysts noted, the candidate spoke in detail about the economic anxiety and his plans to deal with the mortgage crisis, the rising costs of college and health care, and a possible recession. It was a way to identify with ordinary Pennsylvanians, and to flesh out his calls for change.

At a town-hall meeting in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday, for instance, Obama said family income was "flat-lined" and added: "You are paying more for everything from college to health care to a gallon of milk to a gallon of gas. It's hard to make ends meet."

Obama called himself the "underdog" again and again, and his campaign aides are positioning themselves to portray as a win anything less than a blowout for Clinton in Pennsylvania.

Strategy aside, Obama called the meet-and-greet parts of the tour a good time. "If you're on the road for six days straight, away from your wife and kids, to mix in a little fun wasn't bad for the candidate," he said.

He was even able to turn the disastrous bowling outing in Altoona to his advantage, joking again and again about how bad he was and drawing sympathetic chuckles.

"I'm going to tear out the bowling alley in the White House and put in a basketball court," Obama said yesterday at a Wallingford stop. (Cutting a trim figure, he is proud of his basketball game and does not joke about that.)

At times, the campaigning was a little awkward, a guy making small talk with strangers while every sound and image was recorded by a pool of media.

In Latrobe on Friday night, Obama went to a sports bar to watch some NCAA hoops and just have a lager with the locals.

"You know I got a beer down there," Obama said to one patron. "What do they call it? A Yuengling?"

"Yuengling," the man confirmed.

"Trying a Pennsylvania beer, that's what I'm talking about," said Obama, his sleeves rolled up, smiling. "Is it expensive, though? . . . Want to make sure it's not some designer beer or something."

At Tama Manufacturing Co. in Allentown, a JC Penney supplier of made-in-the-USA clothing, Obama took a 25-minute tour and flirted with female workers scrambling to take cell-phone pictures of him.

"You're gorgeous," Obama told a designer of dancewear made at the plant, looking at an old picture of her as a dancer with the New York City Ballet.

"I was," replied Marisa Cerveris.

"You still are," Obama said, turning to the crowd. "Isn't she beautiful?"

Cerveris gave Obama black-and-pink leotards for his daughters, Malia, 9, and Sasha, 6, who take ballet lessons. The senator thanked her and said, "I don't miss a recital."

Yesterday morning, Obama ducked into Claudio Specialty Food, a meat-and-cheese shop in the Italian Market. Perusing the cheeses, he bit into a slice of provolone. "I'm thinking I need some cold cuts," he noted, nibbling on the cheese. "The fresh mozzarella sounds good. But I want to try the salami." He dropped a thin slice into his mouth. "Good stuff," he declared.

Next door at DiBruno Brothers, Obama tried goat cheese, blue cheese, and a Spanish ham - Jamon Iberico - that retails for $99.99 a pound.

Hours before flying home to Chicago, Obama ended his Pennsylvania journey with a live appearance on MSNBC's Hardball College Tour at West Chester University.

Monica Simpson, 19, an education major, huddled with a friend in blankets at the entrance to Hollinger Field Hall, eager to get front-row seats to Hardball.

"The crowd was pumped," she said afterward. And she got close enough to the stage to shake Obama's hand. "He smiled at me and I almost cried," Simpson said.