What’s in a word? Plenty, Barack Obama has learned in this campaign. Don’t call Pennsylvania voters “bitter” and don’t call female reporters “sweetie.” Dare we say it’s been a bittersweet lesson?

Back in Pennsylvania in early April, Senator Barack Obama took some heat for calling a female factory worker “sweetie,” in Allentown.

He did it again today at a Chrysler Plant in Sterling Heights, asking a reporter to “hold on one second there sweetie” when she asked, “How are you going to help the American auto workers?”

He said he would address it at what was then an expected media availability — not soon enough.

“This sweetie never did get an answer to the question,’’ the reporter told her viewers on the local channel 7.

Source: “Obama: Hold On, Sweetie,”

Peggy Agar did get her apology. It was a voicemail apology some hours later.

Obama apologized in a voicemail he left on Agar’s cell phone at 3:16 p.m:

“Hi Peggy. This is Barack Obama. I’m calling to apologize on two fronts. One was you didn’t get your question answered and I apologize. I thought that we had set up interviews with all the local stations. I guess we got it with your station but you weren’t the reporter that got the interview. And so, I broke my word. I apologize for that and I will make up for it.

“Second apology is for using the word ’sweetie.’ That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front. Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next.”

Source: Obama Apologizes to WXYZ Reporter (Visit the Web site to hear the voicemail apology.)

See also: WXYZ – Peggy Agar Talks About Obama Apology (Video Interview)

We wonder how long it will be before Obama sweetie T-shirts will be available. (And the Obama sweetie mash-ups and remixes.)

As for the original April “sweetie” incident:

If the media truly are not more gender than race biased, then Barack Obama’s remarks on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania this week should get as much coverage as Hillary Clinton’s remark about Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson.

While flirting with female factory workers in Allentown, he called one “sweetie,” a paternalistic way to address a woman if there ever was one. It might have worked had he been trying to do his best imitation of Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine, the telephone operator, but this was no spoof. This was Obama trying to relate to working-class women in a way that went directly south.

Source: Obama’s “Sweetie” Problem

Obama playing pool in West Virginia. As with politics, a game of strategy.

Regarding the April “Sweetie” incident see also

• Obama Pool Report from Allentown, Pennsylvania

See also:

• Obama to Reporter: Sorry I Called You “Sweetie”
• Video: Obama annoys reporter by calling her “sweetie”; Update: Obama apologizes
• Outside the Beltway: Sweetie-gate

That’s the word on Obama Goes from “Bitter” to “Sweetie.” Apologizes.