Obama's Election Day In Chicago: Playing Ball And Making Calls
By Samantha Abernethy in News on Nov 6, 2012 11:20PM
President Barack Obama spent Election Day in Chicago today, biding time until the big (but not nearly as big as 2008) party tonight at McCormick Place. He played basketball, an Election Day tradition, and he stopped by campaign headquarters downtown to make a few calls. The campaign has been bombarding the internet with tweets, although there have been fewer emails than any day since probably July. (Just as I typed that, Obama texted me.) Obama even did his part to coax internet trolls away from the computers and to the polls with a post on Reddit this afternoon.
Obama says he has played basketball on every Election Day in his presidential run except the day of the New Hampshire Primary in 2008, which he lost to Hillary Clinton. Illinois politician Alexi Giannoulias has been a perennial participant, and he told NBC Chicago the first game was in "a cold gym in Des Moines, Iowa." Today Obama was joined by former Bulls Scottie Pippen and Randy Brown, in addition to Giannoulias, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, businessman Marty Nesbitt and Obama's former personal aide Reggie Love.
Okay, good news: Pippen and B.O. are both on my team!Reggie, Sec Duncan- here we come...
— Alexi Giannoulias (@Giannoulias) November 6, 2012
According to the White House pool report, the two five-player teams (with substitutes) played four 12-minute quarters. Obama's team won with a score of "like 102, 105, 108 or so to 80-something," Giannoulias said. Then he bragged about scoring more points than Pippen.
Then Obama stopped by the campaign headquarters downtown to make a few calls to volunteers, mostly in Wisconsin. According to a White House pool report, those who answered the call were bewildered.
"Hi is this Jill? This is Barack Obama. This is your president. You're working so hard I had to say thanks. No, it is. I'm calling some of our best volunteers up in Madison." Jill apparently puts someone else on the phone and Potus again says hello. "You guys are out there just tearing it up," he says. "Proud of you guys."