Draw your own conclusions from the candidates’ scheduled events for Election Day 2012 as many have. President Barack Obama will be in Chicago, his hometown, even though he already has stopped by his city’s South Side to vote in recent days. The reason for this Chicago visit is apparently to play basketball. According to Robert Gibbs, who was President Obama’s former White House spokesman and who is joining Obama on his final day of the 2012 presidential campaign, the president emailed his former personal aide Reggie Love and told him to organize the regular pickup basketball game in the Windy City for Election Day. Reggie Love, a former Duke University basketball player, is one of Obama’s regular basketball buddies.
It is reported that another Chicago friend, Martin Nesbitt, who has been travelling with Obama during the final days of the campaign, will likely join in.
The Obama basketball game on Election Day has become sort of a tradition which he isn’t likely to break as he may feel jinxed when he doesn’t play hoops on Election Day. According to Gibbs, Obama didn’t play ball once on Election Day – in 2008 – and that was the day he lost the 2008 primary election to Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.
Now, a word about what GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney is scheduled to do on Election Day 2012. Totally different from President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney will still be “working” the campaign trail. This really doesn’t surprise anyone who has watched him from the beginning of this campaign. He means business. He lives and breathes business. Winning this election means everything to the man who believes he has the course for America to follow to become better for all.
On Election Day, Romney is scheduled to make campaign appearances at some unspecified location in Ohio and then in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Both states – Ohio and Pennsylvania – are reportedly close at this point in time and extremely important states in the final hours in regard to the electoral count. Then, on election night, the presidential hopeful on the Republican side will be going to Boston, Massachusetts for the election returns.
President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney’s Election Day schedules are as diverse as the men and their proposed direction for America’s next four years. Needless to say, both politicians will be doing what they apparently love doing most at the end of the long campaign trail – one playing ball and the other keeping his mind on the business-at-hand.
For the record, vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan concluded his campaigning on Monday night in Youngstown, Ohio. And as far as Vice President Joe Biden is concerned, while having no appearances planned for Election Day, he told reporters on Monday at Mimi’s Café in Sterling, Virginia: “It’s all over but the shouting”.
About Scott Paulson
Scott Paulson writes political commentary for Examiner.com and teaches English at a community college in the Chicago area. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.
