SAN FRANCISCO, July 21, 2012 — Eavesdropping inside President Obama’s brain: It’s amazing, but no matter how dire the economic indicators, I still retain my boyish charm and ingratiating smile that has kept me afloat in the polls. Well, it worked for Reagan. He grinned his way through eight years.
I just gotta ride out these gloomy predictions of an economic slump and keep up the attacks on Romney’s fancy tap-dancing about his finances and tax shelters. I’ll bet the GOP wishes Gingrich was back in the race. He’s a fatuous windbag but an open book. Even though Newt may sound like a self-important wise guy, at least he’s very much himself.
If only the unemployment rate would dip below 8% by November, I’d have a lock on a second term while Romney scrambles to get his act together. My major hope now is that he chooses a really boring running mate like Tim Pawlenty and not Condi Rice, which could hurt. She’s black, female, a diplomatic pro, and charming. I can only pray she means it when she says she’s not interested. I guess we’ve heard that one before.
I can’t believe the loonies are still claiming I’m not a U.S. citizen. Just this week, that crackpot Arizona sheriff said my birth certificate is a forgery. He and Trump should run on a Third Party Birthers ticket. My gut feeling is that millions of Right Wingers in places like Idaho and Kansas and Alabama are unaware that Hawaii is part of the United States.
Obama family out for a stroll with Bo
Don’t quite know what to do about Biden. Joe’s loyal and capable and has finally learned to button his lip. Everyone wants me to switch him and Hillary, but I’ve already got the chick vote, also the blacks, gays and Hispanics, so why do I need her to grab the VP spotlight with an eye on the 2016 race? Nah, better stick with good, old invisible Joe.
Now I just need to find a way to get the older white guys on board. I guess my basketball passion hasn’t quite done it. Hey, Biden’s an old white guy. Maybe he could fire up the aging male white vote with more speeches about his blue-collar Scranton boyhood.
My aides say I’m still too damn professorial and need to get more down-and-dirty so the middle class can feel I’m one of them, but I’m just not a down-and-dirty kinda guy. Geez Louise, I thought my calm, rational, unflappable approach helped get me to the White House over the impulsive, hothead McCain. Now everyone complains I’m too rational.
Vice president Joe Biden with Obama
I need to sit down and share a beer with a few folks at country fairs this fall to get rid of the white wine-and-brie image. Or maybe I can mention how much I love to hunt and fish and work on my car weekends. It also probably wouldn’t hurt to hold a campaign stop at Hooters.
I really don’t know why more people, Democrats included, don’t appreciate me a lot more. Hell, I saved the damn auto industry, did away with Bin Laden and crippled al Qaeda, won the health care battle in the Supreme Court, allowed illegal aliens’ kids to stay in the U.S., and came out for gay marriage. Not a bad record in three and a half years, but the hard Lefties keep whining for more. Boy, some people are just never satisfied.
The best thing I have going for me are photos of me, Michelle and the girls strolling together in public. Women really eat up that ideal family stuff and the media can’t get enough of it. It’s getting harder to get the girls to go anywhere with us, and Michelle has said enough already with the photo ops of her digging in the White House vegetable garden. But I asked them all to hang in there until Election Day for just a few more adoring family strolls. After I win, I’ve promised them they’ll be dismissed.
Gerald Nachman is the author of several humor and entertainment books, most recently Right Here on Our Stage Tonight!: Ed Sullivan’s America; Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s; and Raised on Radio about the golden age of radio. For years Nachman was a critic and syndicated columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Daily News. For more on Mr. Nachman go to: geraldnachman.com
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