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Associated Press -- May 13, 2006 (AP) CHICAGO U.S. Sen. Barack Obama has said over and over again that he doesn't plan to run for president in two years. And yet Illinois' charismatic junior senator says if he did, he's already picked out a certain late-night talk show host as his vice president. How does Obama-O'Brien '08 sound? "I was thinking about you as my running mate," Obama quipped to the host of NBC's "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" on Friday, after being asked - again - if he plans to launch a presidential bid. Obama, 44, a Chicago Democrat who in his first year in Congress has rocketed from a locally known politician to a bona fide national celebrity, gets asked about running for president at most of his speaking engagements. His usual answer is that he's flattered by the suggestion but still has a lot to learn about Washington. O'Brien's query met with wild applause from an enthusiastic young audience of about 3,800 inside the Chicago Theatre during a taping Friday evening of O'Brien's show, which was scheduled to air Friday night. But don't go printing campaign buttons yet. "It would be the worst thing you ever did," O'Brien joked. "You'd think it was funny and then like a day later you'd go, 'God, I'm an idiot!"' On "Late Night," which has been taping in Chicago for the past week, a relaxed Obama ridiculed everything from his diffucult-to-pronounce name to how his wife makes fun of his ears. "She talks about my ears a lot, that's an old standard, how big they are," he said. He also poked fun at President Bush, whose diction is often the target of O'Brien and his talk-show counterparts. Obama joked that Bush calls him "Rac" instead of Barack Obama. "I can't tell whether he's trying to give me a nickname, or whether he just can't pronounce my name," Obama said. |