Could Barack Obama actually be--gasp!--uncool?
According to the conservative blogosphere--and at least a few impartial observers--the answer, it seems, is yes. After photographs (above) of Obama riding a bike with his daughters Malia, 7, and Sasha, 9, last weekend along Chicago's Lake Michigan shoreline hit the wires, the heavily trafficked right-wing message boards of Free Republic went wild. "Please tell me he isn’t wearing dark socks," wrote one commenter. "Dorkier than John Kerry," wrote another. Several posted images of Pee-Wee Herman. Soon, the MSM was also weighing in on Obama's square, Seinfeldian combo of white sneaks, bleached jeans and tucked-in golf shirt. "Obama gets poor fashion marks after weekend bike ride," the New York Daily News declared this morning. "It wasn't a pretty picture."
It's hard to argue with that--I mean, the bumper* alone would've gotten Obama beaten up in middle school. But it's equally hard to imagine that the bike shots will do the Democratic nominee any real damage. As the New York Times' Matt Bai has written, not every embarrassing moment sticks: "If it substantiates the most relevant thing that your rival would have
us believe about you, then it has the potential to become a serious
problem. If, on the other hand, you do something completely idiotic
that is tangential to what voters most hope or fear about you, then you
tend to get a pass." The only reason we're interested in these photos is because of how sharply they clash with Obama's hip, refined image; we're so used to seeing the Illinois senator in a well-cut Burberry suit and reading breathless analyses of his cool, Kennedyesque style that catching a rare glimpse of him in casual wear seems like a news event. In 2004, John Kerry was mocked mercilessly for riding his $6,000 carbon-fiber road racer in spandex shorts because it reinforced his image as a rich, out-of-touch Frenchman. Obama's bike moment just makes him look like a normal American dad.
Which, come to think of it, isn't exactly a bad thing. Among Republicans, there are two basic lines of attack against Obama: that he's an elitist and/or that he's uncomfortably "exotic" (a category that includes "unpatriotic," "radical," and, implicitly, "too black.") The bike pictures counteract both. It's pretty much impossible to be the upscale, smooth-talking, all-style-no-substance snob of GOP fantasies--the guy who "doesn't get" ordinary Americans--when, as the Boston Herald's Margery Eagan notes, "you look as suburban, as unchic, as let’s-hop-in-the-Explorer-and-head-to-Costco wonky as Obama looks in this oh-no! photo." And while the press has tended to focus on Obama's connection to black culture in recent weeks, from his reference to Jay-Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" to his fist pound with wife Michelle, the bike photos prove, once and for all, that Obama can be painfully, embarrassingly "white" as well. You can almost hear the chorus rising up from supermarket check-out lines nationwide: Look, Linda! He's just like us.
Next up: Obama is "caught" wearing a "World's Greatest Dad" apron while barbecuing on July 4 weekend. The horror...
*I'm informed that this is actually a contraption for towing one's child. I suppose I've shown my age: too old to have been towed on a bike, and too young to have anyone to tow.
