Obama shares 10 surprising facts

Those Democrats are always stretching the truth about themselves. How else to explain Barack Obama appearing on network television to reveal he has not "slept since October". Come on senator, we know the campaign trail is gruelling but still.

Wait a second. Mr Obama was being funny, a trait we have not seen too much of recently and the venue was The Late Show with David Letterman, which includes some kind of top 10 list every night. On Thursday, it was the top 10 surprising facts about Barack Obama, delivered by the candidate himself via satellite link from Bend, Indiana, where he is in full – and very serious – campaign swing.

To demonstrate that he still has a sense of humour, even in tricky times, Mr Obama used the list to poke fun at himself. Surprising fact No 5: "I have cancelled all my appearances the day the Sex and the City movie opens."

The list was also a chance to address his elitist problem, deepened by his remarks about working class voters being "bitter" and clinging to guns and religion. "Earlier today I bowled a 39," he offered as fact No 6, a reminder of his dismal performance in a bowling alley before the Pennsylvania primary.

Notably missing, however, was any mention of the Rev Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago pastor whose incendiary remarks have done so much to slow Mr Obama's momentum. Apparently the Wright debacle is just too grave to be made light of.

Instead, Mr Obama offered an anodyne quip about Dennis Kucinich, the minor Democrat contender who dropped out of the race weeks ago, joking that in the Illinois primary, he had voted for Mr Kucinich by mistake.