re: #6 Gretchen G.Tiger

Obama is the father of daughters. I get the idea he is a great father of daughters.

Whereas Mitt Romney is the father of sons.

But more important to this sort of photo op is that Mitt Romney isn’t a “neighborhood person”. It’s not really something his business career encouraged, given the long hours and lots of travel his work entailed, and by the time he shift into politics he was set in his ways. But while he relates easily with his own family and has proven a good father in his won right, Romney’s dealing with people outside of his social circle tend to be formal and during the campaign were rigidly controlled in a bid to prevent gaffes.

Barack Obama is a neighborhood person, and has been since the 1980’s. While his being a community organizer has often been derided in some circles, it did press upon him the importance of making sure to appear accessible and friendly to his clients and supporters. Coming from Chicago also resulted in Obama being taught the importance of local area awareness, a vital skill in a political machine that retains its power in part by making sure its leaders are well informed about events in their wards and districts and that some of that knowledge is to be derived first hand.

The upshot of all this is that it is to be expected that Barack Obama would throw in that extra bit for a photo op like this, whereas Romney would have been scripted and formal.