by Christi Parsons and Mark Silva
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The campaign really is a treadmill.
Barack Obama was on one this morning, and a crowd of the curious pressed its faces against the glass of the South Florida gym where he was working out to catch a glimpse.
Obama's morning workout caused a stir at the strip mall that is home to Planet Fitness. Dozens of people leaned against the window as he walked on the treadmill inside and then lifted weights. The candidate waved at the fans as he emerged and headed back for his hotel.
"I just wanted to catch a glimpse of the next president," said Bill Podewitz, a sales rep from Sarasota who watched from a few yards away.
If working-out-candidate-watching is a fun spectator sport here in Florida, where the state of the stumbling economy is high on voters' minds, more pressing matters will be a considerable factor in the Sunshine State's vote in two weeks.
Mabel Nakotey, a Ghanan immigrant and American citizen, is a vendor who stocks the Publix supermarket. She happened to come to work wearing a navy Obama shirt this morning - one of the 10 that she says she owns.
"I'm working all day and still can't make a living," she said. "My husband has an MBA and can't find a job. Something has to change."
Comments
If Mabel Nakotey is an immigrant from Ghana, that would make her an Ghanaian immigrant, not a Ghanan immigrant.
Posted by: typo? | October 21, 2008 11:52 AM
glad im not the first to see that!
GHANAIAN!
get your stylebooks out people.
Posted by: Sean | October 21, 2008 12:03 PM
Mabel Nakotey, a Ghanan immigrant and American citizen, is a vendor who stocks the Publix supermarket. She happened to come to work wearing a navy Obama shirt this morning - one of the 10 that she says she owns.
"I'm working all day and still can't make a living," she said. "My husband has an MBA and can't find a job. Something has to change."
+++
Irony= Owning 10 Obama shirts- but can't make a living?
Turns out there is a little disposable income in the Nakatoy budget to allow them to buy 10 Obama shirts...
Or the lack of the ability to priotitize a budget could explain why her "MBA" husband is not able to find a job??
Posted by: heartburn | October 21, 2008 12:07 PM
Posted by: heartburn | October 21, 2008 12:07 PM
Yeah, that's it heartburn. The poor are poor because they deserve to be. If she had not gotten those other t-shirts she'd be fantastically wealthy. After all each person should only ever need to own one shirt, one set of underwear and one set of pants. I'm sure a great and successful american like you only owns one shirt, right? That why you deserve to be better paid than the oh so silly Ms. Nakotey, who should be severly criticized for her extravagance in buying 10 t-shirts. 10 t-shirts. Can you imagine how much that cost? She could have put herself through college for that amount of money. The extravagence of owning 10 t-shirts in simply mind blowing. I'm glad that supermarket pays her so little for working hard all day when she has the nerve to buy changes of clothes. Ah for the good old days when the poor wore rags and starved.
Posted by: Republicans against the Poor | October 21, 2008 12:30 PM
Posted by: Republicans against the Poor | October 21, 2008 12:30 PM
Not just 10 shirts... 10 Obama Tshirts ...does anyone that is having a hard time earning a living really need 10 Obama tshirts??
If you can't see the disconnect in that you don't want to...
Lets see- gas in the car or these 10 Obama Tshirts...?? Ding! I go for the 10 Obama shirts...
Posted by: heartburn | October 21, 2008 1:05 PM
1. Does Publix allow employees to wear Obama or McCain or Nader or ANY political t-shirts to work? Not in my company!
2. Price of standard Obama t-shirt on the Obama website: $28.66 with UPS ground shipping. So Mabel spent $286.60 on Obama t-shirts while bitching about not being able to make a living.
3. Hmm, Florida? What a surprise.
Posted by: BamBAm | October 22, 2008 9:47 AM