Obama’s Diary

I’m at my wits end. Why don’t reporters actually write down what I say instead of changing everything around?

Yesterday I was asked about the grueling length of the campaign and I said it has become like “a good movie that lasts too long. You’re full of popcorn, you need to go to the bathroom, the sound is too loud, something is stuck to the bottom of your shoe, the people behind you are talking too loud, and you can’t even remember the plot.”

So, what do they report? The campaign is like “a good movie that lasts a half hour too long.”

That’s not what I said. A half hour? For crying out loud, with all of Hillary’s bitching, moaning, and back biting, this campaign as been more like a John Carpenter weekend movie marathon with previews of every Wes Craven film.

Half an hour? Not.

Newspaper reporters should be required to carry a video camera instead of a notepad.

I really hate it when I get misquoted. For the past two weeks the media has been quoting Democratic party leaders saying that Hillary should quit the race for the sake of the party.

On the campaign plane this weekend I was asked if Senator Clinton should quit the race. My answer was brief and to the point. “Hillary can quit if she wants to.”

The reporters quoted me this way, “Her name is on the ballot. She is a fierce and formidable opponent, and she obviously believes she would make the best nominee and the best president.”

It’s as if there is some kind of reality distortion field around me that changes everything I say to political babble. For example, another reporter asked me if I thought Al Gore should step in to become the party’s nominee. I answered, “Of course not. Let him run a campaign for two years and do it some honest work.”

The reporters quoted me this way, “Al Gore is beloved by the American people and would have made a wonderful President, certainly far better than George W. Bush. We welcome the former vice president’s ability to bring Democrats together in unity.”

That doesn’t even mean anything. It’s political babble. Why can’t reporters just write down what I say? Doesn’t anyone get these things on video tape?

Let me say it again. ‘Hillary can quit if she wants to.’

I would rather move my family to Australia than be forced to select Hillary Clinton as my Vice Presidential running mate. She must be the nastiest woman in politics. Ever.

There is plenty of pressure on both of us to select the other as a running mate, regardless of who wins. I understand the issue. I feel the pain of Hillary’s supporters. They worked hard to support a woman for the nation’s highest office and they don’t want or deserve to be disappointed.

I won’t disappoint them. I want a woman as Vice President.

Senator Claire McCaskill is what Hillary Clinton would be if Hillary was a nice person. Claire is young, smart, articulate, almost blonde, and doesn’t come with much political baggage, other than the fact that she’s Catholic, but I suspect she will be forgiven for that.

Oh, Claire is a lawyer. That could pose a problem. John McCain will start yelling that lawyers are a danger to national security.

Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo says I should pick Hillary Clinton as my Vice President when I win the Democratic nomination.

He called me on the phone to tell me that a Democratic disaster looms in November if Hillary and I don’t get together.  Like this whole delegate squabble is somehow my fault.

I love Mario like a brother, but he’s from New York so I have to discount half of what he says.

The problem is that I don’t know which half.

This presidential campaign was running along just fine for a whole year before the first primary election. It was positive, upbeat, and everyone was against George Bush and the Republicans who were running the country into the ground. Only when Senator Clinton started losing did the campaign turn nasty.

I told him, “It wasn’t me, Mario. It was Hillary. She’s to blame. Hillary and Howard Dean.” Mario didn’t listen. New Yorkers never listen. They just talk. Hillary has become a New Yorker so I have to ask myself why I would want to have her around the White House every day.

Thanks for nothing, Mario.

Yes, some say I should have done something about Pastor Wright before I started the campaign for President. Same say it’s easier to put the past behind us early in a campaign. I did that when I acknowledged taking drugs in college.

Some things are just better off as old news.

I expected Pastor Wright’s incendiary ways to become a problem long ago. It didn’t happen. That tells you how much attention the mainstream media pays to the details when they follow a candidate they like. Even Fox News didn’t catch on to the Wright issue until after it was broken by CNN.

Brit Hume couldn’t spell M-o-n-i-c-a L-e-w-i-n-s-k-y if she was tugging on his zipper.

What was important in this campaign was to build up a strong presence in a number of states before Pastor Wright’s expletives hit the fan, so to speak. By the time his racist comments became public fodder and hit the Top 10 on YouTube, my plan was in place.

I call it my ‘We shall overcome!’ speech. I worked on it for months, just waiting for the day when race became my issue, and not Bill Clinton’s issue. A good speech is not born, it is made, constructed, remodeled, polished, and lighted with enlightenment. People forget the bad when they hear good. I told them the good. They forgot the bad.

I have overcome. Again.

Michelle and I love Chicago. It’s the only city in the country where we can put on jeans, a hoodie, and a ski cap and walk down the streets in the dead of winter and not get hassled.

Last week we headed down the street to our favorite McDonald’s for some coffee. A few McDonald’s have the McCafe with special blends. It is so much fun listening to those young black kids behind the counter.

Anyway, we finished up our coffee and headed outside where a chubby white cop was writing out a ticket. The parking meter had expired. So, I stroll up to the cop and smile and say, “Hey, how about cutting a brother some slack, my good man? Let me put another quarter in the meter and buy you some coffee. It’s cold out here.”

Michelle just giggled.

The officer gave me a dirty look, slapped the ticket under the windshield wiper and started writing another one. The second ticket was for an expired license. I let him write for a couple of minutes, and when he started shivering, I said, “Officer, perhaps we have not made ourselves clear. We are willing to forget the whole thing and promise to get the license renewed if you simply show some restraint. How about it?”

The officer didn’t say a word, finished writing the ticket, slapped it under the windshield and started writing another ticket. I looked over his shoulder and the third ticket was for leaving a car unattended. “Officer,” I said, “You are the perfect example of why cousins should not marry.”

That got him writing another ticket. I don’t even know what it was for. What could it be? Either way, it didn’t really matter. Michelle tugged on my arm and we walked on down the street.

It wasn’t our car.

I love Chicago.