Barack Obama has been endorsed by the city of Obama, Japan.
Members of a local tourism association and other people formed a volunteer group Monday supporting Obama and put up campaign posters at a local hotel.
“We’d like him to win the election and visit our city as president,” said 55-year-old Kiyoji Fujihara, a group representative.
[…]
According to the city government, the move arose out of an e-mail sent to city hall by a local resident in late 2006.
The message said Obama had joked “I’m from Obama” on TV when visiting Japan and that the city should consider giving him an award for the comment that became good publicity for the city.
It is not known if he actually did make such a comment, but the city last year sent Obama a letter and lacquered chopsticks, a local specialty, city officials said.
Most exciting to me, though, was this bit:
The group is also considering selling Japanese-style “manju” sweets with Obama’s portrait on them.
Mmm, Obama manjuu.
Via Japundit.
Update: It occurs to me that a person who uses name similarity in this way would be what Edogawa Conan would call an お芽出度い奴.