Obama in joking mood in Florida

US President Barack Obama makes the Hawaiian symbol known as the “shaka” during a visit to Gator’s Dockside restaurant in Orlando, Florida, on September 8, 2012 during the first day of a 2-day bus tour across Florida. AFP / SAUL LOEB

ORLANDO, Florida – President Barack Obama was winning laughs at a packed restaurant on the campaign trail Saturday, where he was introduced to a boy born in his home state, Hawaii.

At a bustling eatery Gator’s Dockside, the incumbent president sidled up to a table of 10 people including five children, at which a woman signaled to Obama that one youngster was born in Hawaii.

“You were born in Hawaii? You have a birth certificate?” Obama joked to the boy, whose table burst into laughter.

The US president long has been a target of “birther” theorists who have suggested his Hawaii birth certificate was a fake, and he was perhaps ineligible for high office.

Obama took his case Saturday to the most contested part of the biggest swing state, Florida, and told 11,000 people in St Petersburg, “you’ve got a big choice to make” ayhead of the November 6 election against Republican Mitt Romney.