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First he was too elitist. Now he is apparently too slim. Seriously.

From The Wall Street Journal:

But in a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them.

The candidate has been criticized by opponents for appearing elitist or out of touch with average Americans. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted in July shows Sen. Obama still lags behind Republican John McCain among white men and suburban women who say they can't relate to his background or perceived values.

...

Sen. Obama drew cringes on a campaign stop in Adel, Iowa, in July 2007, when he asked a crowd of farmers: "Anybody gone into a Whole Foods lately and seen what they charge for arugula?"*** The upscale supermarket specializing in organic food doesn't have a single store in Iowa.

Lately, Sen. Obama is more careful. On a campaign stop in Lebanon, Mo., on Wednesday, Sen. Obama visited with voters at Bell's Diner and promptly announced "Well, I've had lunch today but I'm thinking maybe there is some pie."

He settled on fried chicken and told the crowd he's become a junk-food lover. "The healthy people, we'll give them the breasts," he told the waitress. "I'll eat the wings."

Struggles with weight-loss, on the other hand, can make a candidate seem more human. Some aides winced when footage of a sweat-drenched Mr. Clinton jogging into a McDonald's in Little Rock, Ark., aired ahead of the 1992 campaign. But the footage is widely believed to have helped the then-governor of Arkansas connect to voters in conservative-leaning states like Georgia and Tennessee, which eluded Democrats in 2000 and 2004. These states have a statistically higher number of overweight people than Democratic strongholds.

***From Media Matters :

In a section headlined "The Arugula Moment," the August 23 edition of Glenn Beck's daily email newsletter stated that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "was in Iowa talking to some farmers and tried on some of his 'relating to farm people' material. 'Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?' the Senator said. 'I mean, they're charging a lot of money for this stuff.' " The newsletter linked to a recent Newsweek article describing the incident and went on to assert, "It would have been a total home run for the Senator if it weren't for the fact that there are no Whole Foods stores in Iowa and arugula is not even grown in the state."
In fact, arugula is grown by local farms in Iowa and is widely available in stores throughout the state, including Cleverly Farms in Mingo, Iowa, and Mariposa Farms in Grinnell, Iowa. Moreover, vendors at numerous farmers markets, including the Davenport Farmer's Market and the Ames Farmers' Market, sell arugula directly from farms to consumers. Several Iowa grocery stores also carry arugula; the website of Hy-Vee, a large grocery chain headquartered in, and with four stores in, West Des Moines, Iowa -- approximately 22 miles from Adel, Iowa, where Obama made his arugula remark -- offers tips on cleaning and serving arugula, as well as several recipes featuring it.

Right then. So according to this article, Americans are so goddamn dumb that they might vote for a slim guy for President of teh United States. Right.

EDIT: Except that, Hullabaloo does a little research and finds:

President George W. Bush rode with cycling superstar Lance Armstrong on Saturday, August 20, 2005.

The seven-time Tour de France champion joined the president for a two-hour, 17-mile trek through the canyons and river-crossings of Bush's 1,600-acre Crawford, Texas ranch. The two only rested for ten minutes during the ride.

George W. Bush, 59, took up mountain biking after a knee injury forced him to give up jogging a couple of years ago.

He's described by his doctors in his annual physical as being in "superior" condition for a man his age.

He participates in a six-day-a-week workout regimen and showed his heart rate monitor to reporters who rode with him. The monitor showed he burned 1,493 calories in the prior 17-mile ride that also lasted two hours.

AND

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gets up at 4:30 in the morning to exercise. She set up a mini gym in her apartment with a stationary bicycle and an elliptical machine.

PLUS

Earlier this year, an airplane wandered into restricted Washington, D.C., air space. Bush, we learned, was bicycling in Maryland. In 2001, a gunman fired shots at the White House. Bush was inside exercising. When planes struck the World Trade Center in 2001, Bush was reading to schoolchildren, but that morning he had gone for a long run with a reporter. Either this is a series of coincidences or Bush spends an enormous amount of time working out.

But Pres. Bush was a Real American with whom teh Average American could have a drink with. Its Okay If You Are A Republican, Writ Large.