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Opinion: Cookies, talk of marriage -- a night on Barack Obama’s campaign plane

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It’s been a good week for Barack Obama. Along with polls trending in his favor, there were big wins for his favorite team, the Chicago White Sox, that got the club into the baseball playoffs.

The team’s clinching victory meant Obama won a bet with one of his foreign policy advisors, Dennis McDonough, a fan of the team the ChiSox defeated, the Minnesota Twins.

On a late night flight Wednesday to Grand Rapids, Mich., from Washington, where Obama cast a vote for the economic rescue plan that passed the chamber, the presidential aspirant ventured into the back of his plane with his winnings -- a Tupperware container full of chocolate cookies made by...

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...McDonough’s wife. He offered the goodies to Secret Service agents and members of the traveling media. And he also bantered with reporters about domestic policy -- of the most personal kind.

Obama was hazed recently by MSNBC host Keith Olbermann for saying his 15th wedding anniversary was coming up this week -- when it’s actually his 16th. When a reporter inquired about his plans for the big day, this Friday, he said he was thinking about taking his wife, Michelle, to one of their favorite Italian restaurants in Chicago for “some quiet time.”

On the way back to the front cabin, he took note of a newly-engaged reporter; she, in turn, jokingly asked for his advice on marriage.

“What’s the secret?” he said, pausing between the cabins. “A sense of humor, listening. ... Never get so mad that you forget why you love them -- so you don’t say something that it’s hard to take back.”

Obama revealed he hadn’t settled on a gift for Michelle, but added, “It will be big. After this year, it better be big.”

-- Maeve Reston

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