Here we go. Not to go all Steve Martin, but in order to paint Mitt Romney as an out of touch rich white guy, Barack Obama is going to play the part of the poor black child.
There were no silver spoons, but lots of school loans. Grandmother worked her way up the ranks at the bank. Later, it took two incomes to pay the condo mortgage and the bills.
If all this doesn’t sound familiar, it soon will.
As he heads into a faceoff with Republican Mitt Romney, President Obama’s speeches are revisiting parts of the life story that helped propel his rise. There are nods to his humble beginnings, his hardworking grandmother and the stresses of debt — in short, stories that best connect with the middle-class voters his reelection may depend on.
So the late grandma who got run over by the Obama bus as a “typical white person” in 2008 now gets re-cast as the hard working woman.
Obama also plans to emphasize his family’s debts. Not the unsustainable debts he has racked up for the nation as president, but the personal debt he racked up as a student before his two autobiographies and Michelle Obama’s lush hospital job saved them.
“Michelle and I, we’ve been in your shoes,” the president told students Tuesday at the University of North Carolina as he called on Congress to extend a break in school loan interest rates. “Like I said, we didn’t come from wealthy families.”
No, but you had wealthy friends like Tony Rezko. And sidled up to connected people, like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers.
The Obamas’ income in 2009: $5.5 million. In 2010: $1.7 million. In 2011: $789,000. Mitt Romney should ask Barack Obama if he’s better off now than he was four years ago.
The anecdotes serve a double purpose.
After more than three years in office, the trappings of the presidency can begin to take a toll, causing voters to see the incumbent more as a high-priced suit behind a podium than as a person whose life once resembled theirs. Obama campaign aides are mindful of that potential problem.
Voters still show a high awareness of the president’s history, but “those things can fade when all people see is you in an official role,” said Obama campaign advisor David Axelrod.
Yeah, well, taking 17 high-flying vacations in three years, and golfing more often than a PGA pro, have done quite a bit to detach Obama from us common folk. Learning that he ate dogs as a kid has made him that much more alien and weird.
By the way, did you know that Barack Obama ate dogs? Dude.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member