Smooth and confident, Obama has hoops game — Presidential candidate using his love of basketball as a campaign weapon

Last Friday, he scored four baskets — including a 3-pointer — in a Kokomo, Ind., game tied to his voter registration drive. With cameras trained on his every 46-year-old move, Obama scrimmaged Tuesday with the North Carolina Tar Heels.

“Playing ball makes you accessible in a way that neither of them are — Obama and Bradley,” said Eric Hauser, a Democratic strategist who worked for Bradley. “They both deal with the reputation of being distant and cool, and basketball transcends race.”

Growing up in Hawaii, Obama considered basketball as a way to find his racial identity in a diverse community.

“I do think you can tell something about people by the way they play basketball,” he told HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” this month. “Here is a place,” Obama told HBO, “where black was not a disadvantage.”