-By Dan Proft
In two revealing interviews over the weekend, we learned that President Obama and his tiny dancer who would be Chicago Mayor are challenged by the same marketing problem: the public’s perception of them belies who they really are.
In his sit down with the New York Times, the President laments that in his first two years he let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend Democrat”.
He’s not, you know. Sure, you can focus on all of Obama’s taxing-and-spending if you are one of those people obsessed with looking at what people do instead of blindly accepting what people say. Fortunately for him, the President is not such a person.
Meanwhile, back in Chicago Rahm Emanuel graced the pages of the Chicago Sun-Times with a warm, deposition-style interview. Perhaps it was a dry run for the forthcoming Blagojevich retrial.
The interview provided a wonderful opportunity for Rahm to mimic human feelings.
Before the interview, you may have thought as I did that Rahm was abrasive. Instead, we learned he is simply the “ultimate middle-child”, a people-pleaser who hates confrontation. I was surprised too.
Before the interview, you may have thought as I did that Rahm was a soulless political mechanic who had no problem enlisting a corrupt city water department boss to aid his congressional campaigns.
Wrong. Rahm never met the man. That individual was just one of the thousands of ordinary folks galvanized into civic action by Rahm’s inspired work to advance gun control measures.
Before the interview, you may have thought as I did that Rahm was a DC insider. Boy, do we have egg on our face. Rahm nicely cleared up this matter advising that, “I don’t think anybody in Washington would see me as an insider.”
He’s actually “Jenny from the block”. Rahm went on to add that he hopes Chicagoans are not fooled by the rocks that he’s got. He used to have a little, now he has a lot. But no matter where he goes, he knows where he came from.
Who are we to believe, the President and his tiny dancer or our lying eyes?
Click here to listen to an .mp3 of this commentary as heard on the Don Wade & Roma Morning Show on WLS AM-890.
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Dan Proft (dan@danproft.com) is a talk show host and political commentator for WLS-AM 890 (wlsam.com) in Chicago.
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