Tagged as Elitist, Obama Shifts Campaign From High-Flown to Folksy

(Via New York Times.)

With sleeves rolled up and folksy on his mind, Barack Obama stepped into the Evansville Labor Temple — a highbrow name for a barlike haunt where the walls are adorned with photos of Nascar drivers, basketball schedules and a poster celebrating the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition. Mr. Obama slapped backs and ambled over to a mountainous breakfast buffet long on grease.

“I’ve been losing weight on this campaign,” he announced. “I hope there are some biscuits and grits.”

A bricklayer type offered, “Gravy?”

Mr. Obama replied, “Hey, I’m trying to fatten up, right?”

Right.

For the last 10 days leading up to Tuesday’s primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, Mr. Obama’s campaign has unfolded against a choreographed backdrop of factory floors and farmsteads, dinner tables and diners. He has talked less often of the audacity of hope and more often of the anxieties of middle-class Americans, while throwing in allusions to Nascar, fatty foods and beer, and playing the occasional game of basketball.