Come on Down to Obamarama!

Having seen it a second time, I’m sure I’m not imagining it. The strange part is that I have seen no comment about it and it resists Googling. This could be Google bias, I guess. It could be buried in the thousands of references to actual commercials involving this person. It could be Google intent; they may like the guy.

Maybe it’s just a test market concept in the Michigan backwoods, but it seems to be a national cable spot. What is incontrovertible is that – I’ve seen it twice! My wife can vouch for this, because I’ve commented on the reflective national humiliation both times.

I wasn’t someone who said of Ronald Reagan, as did the Liberal intelligentsia, that he should be dissed because he starred in Bedtime for Bonzo. Reagan wasn’t an active Presidential candidate when he made it – it was a career he had in the distant past. Still, I didn’t find it enhanced his Presidential prospects and it became a left-wing trope. This is commercial made by a person running for his party’s 2008 nomination, most likely after he decided to run. It is running at the same time he is. If he had no control over ultimate release timing, then he is too foolish to be President.

I’m talking about Barack Obama lip syncing “I’ve Been Everywhere” in a commercial for a hotel chain. Now the fact that I do not name the chain indicates I’m not sure that it isn’t actually a rental car company, or an airline, or a bus company or an Internet discount site. Hell, maybe it’s a Women’s Shelter. My lack of recall here only indicates that commercial isn’t all that effective – for the sponsor. I DO remember Mr. Obama.

It doesn’t much matter, however, who he’s shilling for; it is difficult to imagine a Presidential candidate doing something so demeaning. Now, maybe it’ll turn out he’s donating what he got paid (if anything) to charity. Maybe he wasn’t paid and just looks at it as free advertising for his campaign. I am demonstrating this works by writing this post.

It does suggest a couple of very interesting questions to put to the Federal Election Commission: “What is the value of the donation for a Presidential candidate doing either a for profit or not-for-profit commercial within 60 days of an election?” A followup: “Since Obama counts as donors to his campaign those who buy T-shirts and coffee-mugs from his Website, will those amounts be included should he decide to take matching federal funds?”

Anyway, if it is really Barack Obama in this 30 second spot, it indicates the utter lack of seriousness he keeps hinting at in his more “substantial” appearances. He’s going everywhere, including Damacus for an intimate little tête à tête with Bashar al-Assad.

If it is not Mr. Obama, and just really superior animatronics, a product of Pixar, a clone or John Edwards in black-face – there’s a lawsuit in the offing.