Hundreds of thousands of New York and New Jersey residents are still without power, fuel, and running low on food. They are freezing as another storm bears down on them.

So, of course, Obama will play his usal game of pick-up basketball:

The president will observe his most time-honored Election Day ritual.

Former White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who has joined the campaign on its final day to travel with President Obama, said his former boss sent an e-mail to his former personal aide, Reggie Love, to start organizing his regular pickup basketball game in Chicago for Tuesday.

Love is a former Duke University basketball player and regular hoops buddy of Obama's, as is Chicago pal Martin Nesbitt, who has been traveling with Obama this week. The president will return to Chicago late Monday night to spend election day in his home town.

"We made the mistake of not playing basketball once," Gibbs said. "We won't make that mistake again."

Obama didn't play basketball on the day of the 2008 primary election in New Hampshire, which he lost to Hillary Clinton.

It must be nice to know that no matter how badly you screw up, it won't be reported anywhere that really matters.