The Obama Campaign's Money Shot

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These ads are everywhere.  I glance at them -- how can one help it?

They come in all shapes and sizes.  Some are in black and white.

And they come in a variety of shapes:

Every time I encountered them, they gave me the creeps.  Why?  Lotsa Romney ads out there, too, shilling for dough.  Nothing wrong with that, part of the process.  First Lady out there shaking the tree.  Gotta have swag to run a campaign.  From what I read, the President needs it pretty bad.  So why was this particular ad so odd-looking and unsettling?

My first thought was that it did not seem very compelling to suggest that the candidate's wife was supporting him.  

I was also uncertain whether her endorsement is even a plus.  I have no idea whether Michelle is popular with voters.  She's a strikingly lovely woman, quite impressive at the lectern.  But after a good start as a candidate's wife and First Lady, it appears that -- the White House vegetable garden aside -- her main interests are celebrity hobnobbing, White House parties, and extravagant vacations with and without Barack.  Like her husband, she's gradually acquired a patina of unlikability.  

No, it wasn't her presence in the ad that was saying weird.

Suddenly, it struck me.

It was the slogan.

Join Michelle and tell Barack You're In.

I know, we all know, what it its author would say it means:   "Hey, we all like Barack -- he's my husband, you know, I call him Barack, you can too! -- so come along with me and join the Barack team!"

But  .  .  .  

Join Michelle.

Join her in what?

Must be:  join her in doing something 

What is she doing?

She is "telling" Barack, "you're in."

I know, I know, you don't have to say it, the "you" isn't "you, Barack," it's "you, reader."  

But I do not believe for an instant that whoever composed and approved this -- and I doubt the President or First Lady had anything to do with it -- didn't calculate that this is easily interpreted, even by those whose minds don't trend that way, as Join Michelle and tell Barack: "You're In."

There it was, the creepiness, the weirdness, the ick:  A pitch for cash accomplished in terms of a suggestion of POTUS coitus.  

Capitalizing, albeit subliminally, on what his handlers believe (and, I've come to think for other reasons, is the President's own belief) to be his sexual magnetism. 

I have some long thoughts about this President's emerging strangeness which I will spare you.  For now. But this bizarre and ubiquitous batch of Internet ads reinforces the thought that his handlers, some of them, seem somehow unserious about his re-election.  

The campaign's advocates for this ad knew how easily it could be read to summon up a carnal image.  (Try to imagine this ad with Hillary Clinton in that photograph in 1996 -- long before the Lewinsky scandal broke -- saying "Join Hillary and tell Bill You're In.")   Obama's ad guys think they're being clever, and that the clever people they believe to be their natural constituency will identify with it and applaud that winking naughtiness with their checkbooks.  Whether they are right, I don't know.  I do know they have diminished an already shrinking presidency, and man.  

Top Dozen Reasons Why I Wish the Burger King Were OUR King

(12) Believes in the virtue of vigorous capitalist competition.

(Artist: TRPollard Jr)

(11)  Is always cheerful.

(10)   Fully appreciates the value of espionage to maintaining balance of power.  (Link goes to latest commercial showing the King stealing McDonald's plans for the Sausage McMuffin with Egg, his predecessor having left the Breakfast Sandwich Reverse-Engineering Project scandalously underfunded.) 


(9)  His public appearances limited to 30-second televised segments with a beginning, middle, and end.

(8)  Frozen expression on his face is 100% natural.

(7)  Although unmistakably regal, he is by no means an elitist; he moves freely among the common people.

(6)  Goes way beyond "don't ask don't tell."

(5)  Very unlikely to lecture us about childhood obesity; almost certain not to demand that we like organic lettuce.

(4)  Ruling by divine right eliminates need for Congress. 

(3)  Will never give a 23-minute answer to a 7-second question; in fact, will give no speeches at all.


(2)  Gravely concerned over the effect on human life of the depletion of the ozone layer.

(1)  The man knows burgers; I like burgers.

 

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Is Michelle Distancing Herself from Obama?

What on earth has happened to the spicy Michelle Obama? This is not a shy lady. Neither is she a woman without strong views on the news of the day. For awhile there, we would hear from her with some frequency on matters of public interest.  When Obama took office, I had expected that we would see a FLOTUS in the Hillary Clinton mode, very much in the foreground as an advisor to the President, and vocal in support of the administration’s policies. I thought it likely that she would seek public office herself someday.

I still think that.

And that’s why I find it most interesting that, as her beloved (I’m not being sarcastic here) husband is suffering an appalling decline in his personal popularity, and his initiatives, one after the other, leave the center who elected him mostly aghast, she is reportedly devoting her fierce intelligence and legendary energy to the encouragement of organic arugula. True, her gardening efforts have called attention to the levels of lead in urban soils, but other than that not even Michelle Malkin has found anything overtly political in the First Lady's switch in fertilizers from sewage sludge – really – to “White House compost, crab meal from the Chesapeake Bay, lime and green sand,” according to The New York Times. (Oops, I spoke too soon.)

I confess that it has occurred to me that Mrs. Obama might have her finger a little more firmly on the pulse of public regard than does her man, and is looking forward to a time when she might want to offer herself up for voters’ approval. A prominent public embrace of POTUS’s widely loathed – at least for now – initiatives on health care, immigration, judicial appointments, international blame-taking, and all the rest would make deniability, uh, implausible:

“I stand before you now as one who, according to the Congressional Avoirdupois Office -- created with bipartisan support at my request -- advocated for policies that resulted in a net aggregate reduction of 157 million tons of suet from the growing bodies of our nation’s children and adolescents during the four years I served this country as its First Lady. That, in turn, has reduced childhood diabetes and other lard-related illnesses to the point where our nation can safely reduce its reliance on professional healthcare, which, as you know, has declined in recent years for some reason." [Wink, eye-roll.] [Wild cheering.]

I’m not saying that her trademark project of fighting childhood obesity is unworthy. Every FLOTUS has assigned herself some uncontroversial cause or other, and this is a pretty good one. But during this period of enormous change accompanied by enormous controversy, her disappearance from the hustings is notable. Thinking ahead, that one is.

By the way:  Turnips, carrots, spinach, chard, black kale – the President has reportedly vetoed beets – it’s not surprising that Malia and Sacha have lost weight. What’s surprising is that they haven’t run away. If you’re invited to the White House for dinner, you might sneak in some Skittles for the young ladies; and, as a gift for the host, Obama’s own personal weight-loss aid:   a carton of Marlboro Lights.