Obama’s Diary

Two more debates. That’s all. Hillary has agreed to another debate in Pennsylvania on April 16th, and we’ve schedule another for North Carolina on April 19th.

So far, Hillary hasn’t agreed to the April 19th debate, just a few weeks before the North Carolina primary election. Why? Some of my advisors think Hillary doesn’t want a debate so close to the North Caroline vote because she’s likely to lose big time.

The real reason she doesn’t want to debate me in North Carolina? Hillary’s afraid of Katie Couric.

CBS News is sponsoring that debate and it’s the first time Katie Couric will host a debate. Hillary can’t stand Katie. I don’t know all the details but it has something to do with how much Hillary had to drink before an interview Katie did back when she was with NBC’s Today Show.

It’s hard to believe that the wife of a former President would drink so early in the morning, but, she is married to Bill Clinton, so, in the words of Chris Rock, “I understand.”

Either way, Hillary won’t look good. If it gets out she’s afraid of Katie Couric then the media will have a  field day. If she can’t stand up to a woman who’s perky and has a big smile, how can she stand up to our enemies?

It’s a good question.

General Tony McPeak stuck his foot in it today. He said Bill Clinton’s campaign tactics are similar to those of Joe McCarthy. I called Tony and told him his remarks were a little over the top and not beneficial to the campaign.

He said, “But Barack, it’s true. The Clintons behave just like Joe McCarthy did back in the 1950s.”

I said, “Yeah, but that’s not the point. Nobody remembers Joe McCarthy. If you’re going to use an evil political figure who plays dirty tricks to win, use someone that people will remember. Nobody remembers McCarthy except old newspaper editors. I don’t even remember the man. He was gone in the 1950s. I wasn’t born until the 1960s.”

The problem with comparing your political opponent to a man like Joe McCarthy is that nobody remembers Joe McCarthy. Besides, the Clintons are even better at playing political dirty tricks than Richard Nixon, and only about half the country remembers anything about him except that he resigned.

Still, I have to wonder if Hillary Clinton isn’t channeling Tricky Dick.

I feel like a political playwright. My speeches inspire, instruct, and motivate. The reviews of my speech on ‘race’ in the aftermath of Pastor Wright’s incendiary comments are pouring in and they’re mostly positive.

The only thing different about this speech was leaving behind the ‘preacher’ in me and simply addressing the audience, and the television audience, as if they are adults. They’re not, but it made them forget about Pastor Wright and remember me as the voice of reason and change in a world full of turmoil and anger.

And I got to mention half a dozen times that my mother is white and my grandparents are white. Pennsylvania, here I come.

Michelle Malkin called me, “Barack Obama, the self-anointed, soul-fixing, nation-healing Political Messiah.”

Some may ask the question, ‘Why did the future author of racial harmony stay with a preacher whose black nationalist leanings were no secret?‘

The answer to that is easy. We all knew that Pastor Wright had too much to drink before a sermon, so his words carried less import. Besides, I can fix any problem with a speech.

Politics is about  a sweet combination of dirty tricks and hitting the other guy harder than he hit you. Nobody on the campaign trail is better at that than Terry McAuliffe, chairman of Hillary’s campaign.

A couple of weeks ago Terry appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. At the same time, David Plouffe from my campaign was about to be interviewed by NBC’s Nora O’Donnell. David saw Terry in the studio and knew that as soon as he was done he would head to the bathroom. Terry is tough but he has a weak bladder. I’m always amazed at the political intel we can dig up on opponents.

David grabbed a few of those little catsup and mustard packets from the snack trays and quickly headed into the studio’s rest rooms. He opened each one just a little on the end, then folded the packets half way, but not enough to squirt out any catsup or mustard. Then he placed a couple of them under each toilet seat.

The idea is simple. When Terry sat down on the toilet the packets squirted catsup and mustard all over his pants. While Terry was trying to clean the mess off his pants, David yelled out to security, “Hey, there’s some pervert with his pants down in the rest room.”

Politics can also be fun.

This whole election season must be a situation comedy to the gods of politics. I’m a black man running for President against a white woman in the Mississippi primary and the race is too close to call.

In Pennsylvania, I’m the hope for the future in a state with no hope and little future, running for President against that same white woman, and the polls say I’m closing the gap. Go figure.

I have about as much in common with people in Pennsylvania as Redd Foxx does with Bono.

Those two states merely underscore what has happened to politics. It used to be that you could predict what was going to happen, and the polls would simply report the obvious. These days, if anyone says they know what tomorrow brings, they’re either crazy or guessing.

To pick up votes in Pennsylvania Michelle told me that I have to learn to polka. Nothing could be stranger looking than a skinny black man trying to polka. People need to ask themselves if they want a President who can bring people together for the common good or a President who can polka.

Politics is a strange dance,  a combination and often simultaneous  tiptoeing through tulips and land mines by political animals forced by circumstance to dance together. So it is in this epic and ongoing battle between the Clintstone Machine, fronted by determined, even desperate yet experienced two-steppers, Bill and Hillary, and the spotlight on the audacity off hope, represented by me and my unique blend of black and white, of youth and experience.

One wrong step and the whole dance comes to an explosive end.

This dance is difficult for me and for Hillary. To keep her candidacy viable against the odds, like the tenacious pit bull she can be, she must attack. Contrary to popular belief, I consider her attacks against me a privilege and an honor.

Hillary’s attacks will make me tougher. If I can withstand her withering and relentless frontal attacks during the primary campaign, how can a mere John McCain do battle and succeed in the general election?

The difference between a tulip and a land mine is manifest only in what happens following a misstep. Hillary may think of herself as more experienced and better qualified, but she cannot bring herself to say that ‘Barack Obama is not fit or qualified to be Commander-in-Chief.’

Such a misstep would be the explosive land mine that John McCain needs to win the election in November.

Sometimes I need to stop and think about what has happened and why and what it means. In Ohio and Texas, I was behind in the polls by about 20 points just a month ago and wiped that out in a narrow loss as my campaign picked up momentum.

Suddenly, the momentum  for this election belongs to Hillary, ostensibly because she threw everything at me in the past two weeks, including the so-called kitchen sink. I don’t get it.

What happened? I was supposed to lose big and I lost small and somehow that’s bad. Is the magic gone?

I can see the newspaper headlines now. “Obama’s lead dwindles.” Or, worse, something like, “Hillary attacks, Obama crumbles.”

There’s only one thing left to do. Buy a little Hillary doll and some pins. Let’s see what she thinks of a little black magic.