You can’t win in politics. Most of the time Obama is attacked as a wine and latte drinking elitist. This week the above picture has been posted all over where he portrays the opposite image while out on a bike ride with one of his daughters. At least Obama is doing a good job of deflecting criticism by stressing the safety factor:
Obama, at a fundraiser last night, was pretty funny discussing the pictures of him riding a bike and looking like a doofus over the weekend:
“I had an internal debate. Because I knew that the A.P. was going to take a picture, and they were trying to portray it like Dukakis wearing that tank helmet. But I wanted to make sure that the children who saw that picture knew that even the Democratic nominee for president wears a helmet when he goes biking.”
And: “Now, obviously the rest of my apparel was apparently not up to snuff, because I got a hard time from all sorts of blogs. Who said I looked like Urkel.”
I imagine he’d look better without a helmet, but that wouldn’t be safe. He’d also look better if he was wearing a suit rather than jeans, but that would just be weird.
In terms of dressing like a nerd, Obama’s outfit is pretty tame. If you really want to see how to dress like a nerd, check out here. If Obama starts running around in a Green Lantern or Flash shirt then there might be some real political repercussions. After dressing like this, I bet Obama could even pass David Brooks’ test of looking like he could go to the salad bar at Applebee’s if not for the fact that Applebee’s doesn’t have a salad bar (an error revealing more about Obama’s critics than Obama).
Reminds me: yesterday, I saw a guy riding a bike, wearing a suit, chatting on a cellphone, and not wearing a helmet. All at once. What–is he a manly man?
There’s no comparing this to the Dukakis tank-jacking. Obama looks like a sensible, normal person. The clip of Dukakis was absurd based on the disproportionate size of the helmet compared to the neck and shoulders. Also, The Duke’s high level of tank-driver enthusiasm expressed by speed and maneuvres (practically doing donghnuts) was a little scary.