The Kennedys apparently aren’t the only Massachusetts Democrats who relish a good game of touch football for the TV cameras and photographers.
John Kerry corralled a group of about 10 students and split them into two teams for a pickup game Friday on the quad of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.
Playing quarterback in a shirt and dress pants, Kerry tossed two successful passes.
“That was awesome,” he said, high-fiving his receiver. “Great catch, man.”
“I think we have the next quarterback for the country,” said Renita Trouten, a Kerry volunteer from Minneapolis.
As with everything this late in the Iowa campaign, the contest was not without controversy: Kerry said the opposing team “cheated” when they scored the tying touchdown as he began walking off the field to deliver a speech.
“You guys must be working for one of my opponents,” he said, grinning as he congratulated the scorer of the tying TD.
–Dan Mihalopoulos
EASY-TO-SWALLOW PHOTO OP
Pity poor Shirley Echelberger of Ft. Dodge in northwestern Iowa. She spent hours baking a sheet cake and frosting it with blue icing. Topped with white piping, it was meant to resemble the “Gephardt for President” signs that fill Rep. Richard Gephardt’s campaign headquarters and events.
Echelberger had been waiting for the Missourian to finish rallying supporters in Ft. Dodge so she could get her picture taken with Gephardt. But when Gephardt was handed the cake to hold up to the cameras, a good size wedge already had been carved out of a corner.
“The excitement overcame them,” Gephardt said of his overly eager, and apparently hungry, campaign staffers.
–Rick Pearson