Barack Obama tried his hand at bowling, bottle-fed a calf at a dairy farm and toured a chocolate factory as he sought to connect with voters in Pennsylvania, a crucial state in the fight for the Democratic U.S. presidential nomination.
Ending a six-day bus tour on Wednesday in a state where his rival Hillary Clinton is heavily favoured, the Illinois senator hoped to erode her advantages, especially with white working-class voters who have been slower to warm up to him than the young people and more affluent voters who have flocked to his rallies.
The Columbia University and Harvard-educated Obama, known for his sweeping oratory, sought to show a more down-to-earth side of himself, talking of his upbringing by a single mother and his early career as a community organizer in Chicago helping laid-off steelworkers.
Obama, who would be the first black president, leads in a tight national race with Clinton, who would be the first woman to win the White House, for the right to represent the party against presumed Republican nominee John McCain in the November presidential election.
But publicly, at least, he's not raising expectations of a win in the state's April 22 nominating contest. Most recent polls have put him behind Clinton, although the race has tightened.
"We are the underdog in Pennsylvania," Obama told voters in Johnstown. "We may not be able to win."
Obama visited a steel mill in Pittsburgh, a wire factory in Johnstown, a restaurant, and a bowling alley in Altoona - in a reprise of the small-scale, person-to-person campaigning used in states that voted earlier, such as Iowa.
At a meeting with voters in Johnstown, Doug and Trish Crump, both Democrats, did not applaud as Obama ran through the reasons why voters should choose him over Clinton.
"He is very charismatic and you automatically look to see what's the substance behind that," said Trish Crump, 48.
Doug Crump, 51, a clergyman, said he "cringed" as Obama said he would reconfigure U.S. foreign policy and avoid the "politics of fear," an allusion to charges that Republicans have used fear of another September 11-type attack on the United States as a way to scare up votes.
Retired railroad worker Tim Anderson, 53, who shook hands with Obama at an Italian marketplace in Philadelphia, said he would vote for Obama because he considered him "the lesser of two evils." He said he distrusted Clinton and liked Obama, although he had misgivings about controversial comments in the past by Obama's long-time pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
"I'm a little up in the air about what happened with his pastor," he said of Wright. "That guy's a bigot."
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