Logotipo da campanha de Barack Obama (Photo credit: Wikipedia)  A trip to the Barack Obama campaign website is an edifying experience for a literate person not enamored of retro-stylized propaganda or giant red buttons beckoning visitors to “share” and “like.” Scrolling underneath the doomsday clock counting down to the announcement of the lucky winner of a dinner with Mr. President is a slideshow of his accomplishments called “Keeping His Word.” This would seem to be a section of substance, but it is based on the social media model of easily digestible fragments of thought accompanied by videos for the reading-averse.  The strangest aspect is the tone. Mitt Romney’s equally inane site tries for folksy and casual—his win-a-date sweepstakes is just to “grab a bite” rather than sit down to a formal and stuffy affair with a one-percenter—yet the Obama campaign takes on the voice of a sorority president, flippant and friendly, yet stern and motherly enough to get things done. An example of this is the blog entry publicizing Vice President Biden’s involvement: “Let’s welcome Joe to the campaign trail and send him a note of encouragement—we’ll make sure he sees them on the way to the first event.” Next order of business, selling those cute Marc Jacobs designer Vote Obama t-shirts.  Getting pumped up for a campaign isn’t a crime but the philosophy espoused by many of Obama’s supporters is dangerous to the dearly bought preservation of free will. One of them is featured on the site as saying: Obama “is giving people that sense of pride—that ‘we can do this, we can do whatever we want to do.’” Apparently we have reached the point in our self-atrophy where we need a president to give us a sense of pride in our collective efforts. One of the executive powers is not to be cheerleader-in-chief, yet the Obama campaign thinks this is a reason to reelect him.  Another supporter is quoted: “I plan on joining the Army and going into basic training, where I know I have the support of the President and the First Lady.” It is commendable to serve the country in the Armed Forces and those who do so deserve our gratitude, but something is missing in this statement. It lacks the explanation of how the President and First Lady became synonymous with Dad and Mom. Of course our military needs support from the person meeting with the Joint Chiefs, but if his spouse is involved, it sounds like it has less to do with military strategy than with the most prominent couple in the land giving a parental nod of approval.  Freudian analysis could continue with another supporter’s delusion: “As a young woman, I want my President to want me to succeed—as much as he wants my sister, my friends and his own daughters to succeed.” We want our parents to want us to succeed because it is proof that they love, cherish, and respect us (just as much as our sisters and friends!), even though seeking that validation comes with enormous pressure and the infinite possibility of failure, disappointment, shattered dreams, and family feuds. All young people are beholden to their parents in this way, but no one is beholden to the man who wins the electoral vote every four years. In fact, he is beholden to us. It’s our validation that he seeks.  Only a stalker desires the approval of a public figure she will never meet. Yet, this insecure young woman wants “her President” to care as much about her as “his own daughters.” I can’t imagine a parent who would take on the responsibility of a nation of foster children, yet Obama, through his campaign engineers at least, welcomes it. He’ll be clapping for us when we all achieve our ambitions or at least receive our participation trophies.  The site doesn’t just feature the words of voters in projecting our current executive as our father, friend, and fan. It also features passages that were written by employees or, more likely, unpaid volunteers. It would be safe to assume that the campaign has poached some highly educated young talent for their efforts, but whoever created this monster of mixed metaphors is not among them: “President Obama believes that America is strongest when everybody has a seat at the table. He’s expanded opportunity for every American by taking steps to level the playing field so everybody plays by the same rules.”  Literal vacuity of that sentence aside, its intended message, like the parental mentality, is perilously applied. My fellow women have been the most recently vocal about the leveling of fields and standardization of rulebooks. Obama’s campaign site notes that his health care law makes it such that “being a woman is no longer considered a pre-existing condition.” (Clever, considering all pre-existing conditions are no longer considered pre-existing conditions.)  Though the statement is meant by that sorority president narrator to make us smirk defiantly, it does nothing but contradict the rest of the progressive platform of women’s issues. The truth is, liberals do think there is something about women necessitating special dispensations and regulations. Their entire agenda is founded on the premise that women need extra protection. So much protection in fact, it’s almost as if we were a weaker sex.  In this vein, the blog features an attack on Mitt Romney’s promise to defund Planned Parenthood, the marketing fiasco we are supposed to care about because, unlike all the other federally funded health organizations, it has the word “parent” in its name. With the link to Romney’s comments, the campaign website says to “please pass this on to anyone you know with a stake in this. (That should be everyone you know.)” It might have been the same mixed-metaphor writer at work with that one. I don’t think he really meant to add that the only people an Obama supporter knows or should know are people who value the same things they do.
President Obama has decided to base his reelection on the idea that he is both an everyman and every man’s old man.