Pool Report on Obama Labor Breakfast in Evansville, Indiana

TIME: 8:00 AM ET
EVENT: Obama Visit to Labor Breakfast (Evansville, Indiana)

Barack Obama spent the morning with a white blue collar crowd, first at
a construction site and then at the Evansville Labor Temple--a fancy
name for a bar type haunt with pictures of NASCAR drivers, IU sports
team schedules and a poster celebrating Bud and the 75th anniversary of
the end of prohibition on the walls.

These guys were AFL-CIO members, building and trade and industrial
workers. Bricklayers and the like. They were giddy when Obama arrived,
snapping pictures, and offering baseballs for him to sign. In brief
remarks, he asked for their votes and sized up the primary race.

"This is gonna be a tight election here in Indiana, every poll shows a
dead heat. We need every single vote," he said. "You guys are pretty
persuasive, I need you to tell your membership this is something worth
fighting for and they need to come out and vote. And vote for me."

With that, he was off to the breakfast buffet.

"I've been losing weight on this campaign, I hope there are some
biscuits and grits," he said, wandering over to the greasy breakfast
spread.

Alas, there were no grits, but biscuits a plenty "made" by a woman named
Debra Market. She said she "made" them "with lots of love" and in the
shape of an "O" for Obama. (Later taste tests revealed that the biscuits
were likely out of a can--they were too doughy and too round, but I
digress).

Obama said he was "starving" as he piled his plate with scrambled eggs,
two sausage patties, and one biscuit.

"Gravy?" a  kind white blue collar person offered.

"Hey, I'm trying to fatten up, right?"he said.

Yet, when the gravy arrived, he already had an alternate breakfast plan.

"I'm gonna skip the gravy, what I'm gonna do is have some of these hash
browns and try to have a biscuit." He ended up eating two biscuits and
cleared his plate.

So what of this Evansville place. It's in Southern Indiana, it's pretty
Democratic, "a town where everybody knows everybody." Freight workers
are hurting, construction work is steady. The boyish looking Mayor of
Evansville, Jonathan Weinzapfel is backing Obama.

Over breakfast they talked green technology--he touted his plan to put
150 billion over ten years into clean energy. All agreed that the gas
tax was a gimmick.

Still, there were more pressing issues.  Basketball for one. And Obama's
(shrinking?) waistline.

"Now how do you keep so slim on the road when you have to eat like this?
Do you work out everyday?" asked Anne Andain.

"I've been pretty good about getting up and working out every," he said
adding that he works out with Reggie Love, who played for Duke, the best
college basketball team ever. "Somebody was asking whether I was tired
(to which he initially responded, no I never get tired), you do get
tired but if you workout, at least you can shake it off a little bit, it
kind of clears your head. You're not yelling at people."

After the 30 minute drop by was over, Bobbie Mayhugh, 59, sized up
Obama.

"He was a down to earth guy," he said. "He feels what we feel. We are
middle class people, he's been at the bottom and now he is at the top."

Bricklayer Raleigh Johnson, 36, said Obama is the only candidate who
stands for something.

"Everybody is looking at Mr. Obama," he said. " It's time for change and
he is the candidate of change."