Obama’s Diary

It’s nothing personal. It’s just politics and a lesson I learned from watching Will Smith portray Muhammad Ali in the movie The Greatest.

Rope-a-dope.

Muhammad Ali coined the term for his fight against George Foreman, the so-called Rumble in the Jungle. Knowing he couldn’t beat Foreman head to head, blow for flow, Ali used the technique to win. He stayed on the ropes of the boxing ring, using them as a cushion while Foreman exhausted himself pounding on Ali round after round.

Ali hardly broke a sweat, but when the time was right, he came off the ropes and clobbered Foreman for the win. Ali did it against Smokin’ Joe Frazier and beat him.

That’s what I’m doing to Hillary. The past couple of weeks I’ve been in rope-a-dope mode, letting Hillary pound away at me. It’s math. She can’t win the nomination. But she thinks she can, so she’s spending money like a drunken sailor. By North Carolina, when I come out swinging to nail her make-up covered hide to the floor, the race will be over.

Rope-a-dope. What a great concept for politicians.

Any political campaign requires quick changes. I’ve got the black African-American vote sewn up. I split the white men vote with Hillary Clinton, but she’s leading among white women.

What’s a politician to do? Come up with a new campaign slogan.

Barack Obama: ‘I Love White Women.’

I thought of it myself. We’re having a whole series of television commercials where I kiss and hug and hold white women. The only issue I’ve run into is which state I need to run the commercials.

Should I run them in North Carolina? I’ll probably win there whether I spend any money on television commercials or not. I’m sure the slogan ‘I Love White Women’ will play well there.

Should I run them in Indiana? After spending about $10-million so far, I’m neck and neck with Hillary in the Indiana polls, so I don’t want to do something at the last minute that might not work.

When a black African-American man tells white women that he loves them how will they react?

Nobody likes high gasoliine prices. John McCain says he has a plan to reduce gasoline prices for average Americans. I studied his plan. If it worked, and it won’t, McCain’s would will save Americans about $25 a year.

The truth is this. The days of $1.50 a gallon for gasoline are over. As a politician I have an obligation to tell people that we can put a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. They can afford it. But that won’t reduce the price of gasoline. We’ll just take that money and find someplace else to spend it.

McCain calls his plan a Gas Tax Holiday. That’s a great line. But it won’t matter. The truth is that American’s already have the lowest gasoline prices of any major developed country in the world. Gasoline is about $10 a gallon in Europe and Asia. Most of that cost is taxes.

McCain wants to eliminate all gasoline taxes from Memorial Day through Labor day, which would save most U.S. drivers about 18-cents a gallon. The voters love that idea but voters are not very good with math.

20 gallons a week means a savings of about $4.00 a fill up. If drivers fill up twice a month, that’s a whopping $8.00 savings. It’s a little over three months between Memorial Day and Labor Day so the average driver saves about $25 a month.

McCain lied. It’s not a good deal for anyone. I lied, too. We won’t be lowering gasoline prices anytime soon, if ever.

Losing is such sweet sorrow. Except for the losing part. All the money in the world would not convince those donkey voters in Pennsylvania that there is true hope for the tattered, shabby, bitter lives. They really enjoy reveling in their misery.

I hate losing. It hurts me. If voters knew how much they hurt me then they would vote for me instead of Hillary Clinton. Nothing hurts Hillary. Nothing. She’s immune to pain. Well, except for the pain she causes others.

Losing is not the American way and we lost our path with Vietnam and we’re about to repeat it again in Iraq. When I take office as President I will tell the American people the truth. Truth hurts. We lost in Vietnam and we lost in Iraq. It is time to tuck tail and run for the hills, the Crusade avengers are on the war path and they seek the death and destruction of America and all we stand for.

We used to stand for winning. Now we stand for losing.

When I think about it more, losing is not so sweet. It’s just sorrow.

It’s not a personal thing, but Hillary Clinton scares me to death. She’s the quintessential horror movie zombie that won’t quit, always on the prowl, always ready to take a bite of human flesh. My flesh. That scares me.

I expect Hillary to win the Pennsylvania primary. She won’t gain many delegates but I don’t think it matters much. She seems to enjoy the hunt for flesh. My flesh.

What I don’t have an answer for is how Hillary manages to win all those big state primaries despite being outspent. Are big states full of flesh eater groupies who rally behind their kind? New York I can understand. California is full of crazies. But Pennsylvania?

David assures me that I won’t have any more debates with Hillary. I don’t want to get that close to her. After the last debate in Pennsylvania I shook her hand and later found out I had three scratches on my arm.

I hope I’m not infected.

To say that Philadelphia is a city of crooks run by crooks is to say that George W. Bush is the worst President ever. Everyone knows.

We’re trying to organize our typical grass roots campaign in Philadelphia and ran into a few snags along the way. Snags? Philadelphia is run by crooks who want their palms greased before they agree to help my campaign.

It isn’t just the local politicians who are on the take, either. Ward leaders want cash up front to organize street volunteers. Street volunteers want $100 a day to hire other volunteers to distribute leaflets and campaign material, and they each want $10 an hour. It never ends.

It’s a racket in Philadelphia. Everyone wants a cut of the action. Even kids on the streets. They don’t have a job. They don’t have any money. They have a chance to work for a cause that will benefit the country and their future, and all they want is $10 an hour.

We didn’t have this problem in San Francisco or Seattle or Austin. Philadelphia isn’t the City of Brotherly Love. It’s the city of brotherly extortion, and I’m the brother.

Why bother with public campaign finance money? It’s not enough. Sure, $84-million in two months sounds like a lot of money. To John McCain.

It’s chicken feed. I’ve raised twice that much money already, and can probably do it again between now and the general election. The deal is rather straightforward. Or, as I like to tell reporters, “It’s simple math, boys!”

The government collects money for campaign financing. However, once a presidential candidate decides to use public financing, he must agree not to raise or spend money beyond the amount the government provides.

Please. What is American about that? We have created a parallel public financing system where the American people decide if they want to support a campaign they can get on the internet and finance it.

Since John McCain’s followers and supporters are old people who don’t know how to use the internet, he wants to take public campaign finance money.

Sorry, John. No can do.