Ah, the choices when shopping for fruits, sweets and votes.

“I think this is the ticket right here. I might have to get a bag of those,” Barack Obama said Tuesday as he pointed to a display of bagged apple fritters during an unscheduled stop at a roadside market. The Democratic presidential candidate was on a campaign bus trip across eastern Ohio.

But then baskets of large ripe peaches caught his eye.

“Let’s go look at those peaches,” he said. “This is pretty good looking stuff.” As he walked around Stahl’s Farm Market, he shook hands, complimented a woman “on a beautiful baby,” and posed for photographs.

Greg Jolivette asked Obama about his basketball playing.

“You got a game? What do you do?” Obama said in response. Jolivette said he was a lawyer.

Obama ended up buying three boxes of peaches, which were emptied into plastic bags. He said two were to take with him on his bus and the other for the media.

The apple fritters still looked enticing.

Turning to senior campaign adviser Robert Gibbs, Obama said, “Gibbs, I know you don’t believe in fruit” and offered to buy him a bag of the fritters. Gibbs told Obama he’d eat the peaches if the Democratic presidential contender bought them. “We better get the apple fritters anyway,” said Obama, who added them to his purchases.

Outside, Obama chatted with three teachers who said they had been horseback riding. They discussed complexities of the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act.

“That’s why we’re going to change it but first I have to get elected. Spread the word,” Obama said.

“Go get ‘em,” one of the teachers told him.

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Compiled by Tom Raum