By John McCormick

INDIANAPOLIS - The Indianapolis Star is arguably the most important news organization in Indiana. So when Sen. Barack Obama called on the newspaper's top political reporter at a news conference this afternoon, her question was telling.

"I've heard a lot of criticism of you lately as too much like a GQ cover, who is aloof and therefore has an image problem and can't relate to working-class voters. Do you think that that is something that is actually a real issue that you need to deal with, or do think that is just nonsense?"

Obama, the former college professor, responded for about five minutes:

"This is a fairly standard suit here. I haven't changed my approach to dressing too much," he said. "Michelle has asked me to clean up because when she first met me I had one suit. Michelle always finds this funny because I basically buy five of the same suit and then I patch them up and wear them repeatedly. I have four pairs of shoes. Recently, I've taken to getting a haircut more frequently than I used to because my mother-in-law makes fun of me."

The Illinois Democrat continued.

"So I don't think people are too worried about what I'm wearing. I know there was concern about my bowling score. I have committed to practicing bowling, so that I'm better. Although I do have say that the fact that you guys reported that as if I'd actually bowled 10 frames - particularly those of you who were there - that just was underhanded. You know? You know there were only seven frames and two of them were bowled by a 10 year old and remember the little kid - the 3-year-old - we carried the ball and put it down the rail. None of that ever came out."

Another reporter then asked Obama whether he was offering excuses.

"Excuses? Well, look. I make no claim. I can't excuse the first two gutter balls. Look, I think one of the things we're going to have to do during the next several weeks is just remind people of where I come from," he said. "It's true that both the Republicans and my opponents to some degree have been trying to paint me as elitist, out-of-touch. It's hard for me to figure that out given that I was raised with far fewer advantages than either of my two remaining opponents. My work started out on the streets of Chicago as a community organizer. My wife, Michelle, grew up in that same neighborhood with a mother and father who never went to college, who worked as a secretary and a city worker. We financed all our education on student loans. I was raised in a setting, with my grandparents, who grew up in small-town Kansas, where the dinner table would have been very familiar to anybody here in Indiana. A lot of pot roast, potatoes and Jello molds. On the one hand, I don't want to go out of my way to sort of prove my 'street cred' as a down-to-earth guy. People know me. And people who worked with me know that the reason I'm in this race is because my own life history and my professional history working as a community rights organizer, civil rights lawyer and as a legislator is to fight so that people can take that same ladder of opportunity that I was able to take as a kid and right now, this country is not providing those same ladders. That's why I'm in this race. That's why I'm fighting to win this nomination. That's why I think I will be the most effective president of the three remaining candidates in helping people help themselves. And we're going to - I will be fighting as hard as I can - to make sure that people understand why I got in this race in the first place, how I got to where I am today. When they understand that, I think they'll recognize themselves and that my struggles are their's and together we'll change the country."