Obama Pool Report from Sharky's Café

In keeping with the sports theme of Day One of the bus tour, Obama and Casey stopped in Latrobe at Sharky's Café, a sports bar with many TV screens and at least 6 pool tables (there may have been more) for an alleged opportunity to watch the other March madness. Sharky's is on U.S. 30, across from Unity Plaza and within sight of the runway lights of Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, named for Latrobe's most famous son.

Davidson-Wisconsin was on the screens inside, tied at 36, when Obama arrived, but he was too busy mingling to watch the best game of the weekend (when he was leaving, Stephen Curry hit a 3-pointer to put Davidson up by 9. You know how it turned out). According to Jen Psaki, they had to leave so that Casey could do a Larry King Live shot.

With some prompting by a pooler, Obama said he was rooting for Davidson, since that would help him with his brackets, which have been severely weakened by the elimination of Pittsburgh last week.

Sharky's according to several habitues, is blue-collar in the daytime and a mix of blues and others at night, according to Ben Miedel, 66, VP of sales at Centre Foundry (and a Republican), who's been going there since the place opened about 10 or 12 years ago.

Obama and Casey had shed their coats. Obama had his sleeves rolled slightly at the wrist, but his tie wasn't loosened. There was no spontaneous reaction (i.e. applause) when they appeared. Alighting at the bar for no more than one minute, they were served pints of Yuengling, and each had a few sips. When they were leaving, Obama paid the bill and left a tip. The barmaid declined to reveal the amount, saying she had stuffed the bills in the tip jar. A patron, Tony Reno, who had been chatting with Obama moments earlier, said the amount was $4.

Reno, whose conversation with Obama lasted a minute or two and was caught by the TV pool's boom mike (but couldn't be heard by your pooler), said he's a Democrat and sighed when asked who he was supporting. He said he had been hearing a lot of good things about Hillary and hadn't heard enough about Mr. Obama and called himself undecided.

One of Obama's more extended conversations was with Tom Mueseler, 58, of Latrobe, unemployed for most of the last 18 months. Mueseler told Obama that he and his friend, Bob Thomas, 39, a former UAW member who drives for a local warehouse, had just been talking about the high price of gasoline and how it was a problem to find the money to pay for fuel to go to job interviews. It was hard to hear but Obama appeared to tell the two men that he wanted to "slap a windfall profits" (didn't hear the word "tax") on the oil companies and talked about the need to bring alternate fuels online.

Towards the end, Obama leaned in and Bob Thomas said something in Obama's ear. Obama responded with a line about not taking PAC money in his campaign (or words to that effect. It was virtually impossible to hear, for reasons of distance and din. I had a recorder running and if anyone cares, please give me a call and I'd be glad to see if this or any of the stuff that was being said is discernible). Afterwards, Thomas said that he had told Obama that he felt the Clinton's "were in the pockets of the Big Boys." Thomas said he's a Democrat and an Obama supporter, having made up his mind for Obama in the last 3 weeks. "He's more for the young voters and more for change."

His companion, Mueseler, said that he, too, was an Obama Democrat. Then he admitted he's not a registered voter. Mueseler and Obama had exchanged some banter about basketball. Mueseler said he was a basketball recruit at Clemson and had played guard for Duquesne in Pittsburgh from 1969-1972. He told Obama that he'd stopped playing a couple years ago; he's had three knee injuries. Obama said that he, Obama, wasn't good enough to play bigtime basketball but that he "could have sat on the bench."

After Obama had moved on, Mueseler was talking to several poolers. He volunteered, unprompted, that he didn't particularly think Obama had given him a good answer about gasoline prices, that Obama's idea of a $1,000 tax credit wouldn't really help people that much and that alternate fuels are not a realistic option in the near term.

When one patron told Obama that he was a football fan, Steelers, naturally, rather than a basketball fanatic, Obama said he'd had Jerome Bettis with him earlier. "'The Bus was on the bus,'" said Obama, adding that he'd also been with Franco Harris. "A pretty good backfield," Obama said.

Finally, and inevitably, Obama was put on the cellphone of at least one bar patron. J. P. Hovance, 29, of Snydertown, handed his cell to Obama so the candidate could talk to Hovance's father, John, who was at home in Snydertown. They talked for a brief moment about basketball and about whether it would be better for Texas or Stanford to win, from the standpoint of their respective brackets, according to the younger Hovance.

---Paul West, Baltimore Sun