Obama Skips Election Day Superstition of Shooting Hoops
EmailABC News’ Sunlen Miller Reports: It’s an unofficial election day superstition for Barack Obama: playing basketball. On Tuesday, he did not shoot those ritualistic hoops.
A little background: Obama played on the day of the Iowa caucus and South Carolina primary, and won both those contests. He did not play on the day of the Nevada caucus and the New Hampshire primary, and lost both those contests.
After those results, Obama told "60 Minutes" on February 10th that, "Now we’ve made a clear rule that on Election Day, I have to play basketball."
But Obama did not play basketball today, on the day of the Wisconsin primary and Hawaii caucus.
Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki says, "When you have two events in Texas, dozens of radio calls and satellite interviews, it’s hard to fit in a game of basketball."
Obama’s day was tightly scheduled with early morning interviews in Chicago dominating his morning before flying out of his home state to Texas, where he had events throughout the day in San Antonio and Houston.
So is this lack of adherence to his election day ritual a sign of confidence with today’s two contests?
Psaki laughed and said, "We would have loved to play basketball, but we knew he had to reach out to voters in Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Texas."
And added, "We’re scouting courts in Ohio."
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Uh oh. Not that I’m superstitious or anything… but what was he thinking?
Posted by: Paul | February 19, 2008, 9:10 pm 9:10 pm
He did not play basketball either when he won big in DC, Maryland and Virginia. So there.
Posted by: diogu | February 19, 2008, 9:13 pm 9:13 pm
Diogu – he did too. I’m from Virginia and kept hearing that report all through the day, almost as a joke. “Polls are still open, so we can’t call the race, but Obama was 3-5 from the floor.”
But as it turns out, who needs basketball. At least one outlet has called the race in Wisconsin for Obama. Only question now is by how much.
I’m also very interested to see Hawaii results – I searched yesterday and couldn’t find a single public poll result.
Posted by: Paul | February 19, 2008, 9:25 pm 9:25 pm
Hawaii is having the caucus today. I think in the evening so with the time change of 5 hours I don’t think we will see results until the morning.
Posted by: Colleen Mahaney | February 19, 2008, 10:14 pm 10:14 pm
This is a good opportunity to remind us all that Obama is not seriously superstitious — one more contrast with McCain.
Posted by: LenL | February 20, 2008, 5:18 am 5:18 am
“Skips” and “shooting hoops”. Yep. That about sums up Camp Change. Is there a policy discussion in there somewhere … over the rainbow … Nope. Too busy skipping and shootin’ hoops. No worry, O, your misogynist boy posse will cover for you. They are paid to tell us what you would have said, if you had said any of the things they thought you said, but someone else said for you.
Posted by: AmazonTraveler | February 20, 2008, 12:25 pm 12:25 pm