Posted by
Scatbug on Thursday, July 17, 2008 11:44:16 PM
Via the Weekly Standard, it appears that the long anticipated sale of the Associated Press to the publishers of Tiger Beat magazine is complete. A short dispatch from today...
CHICAGO (AP) - Sometimes it's hard to tell if Barack Obama is running for president of the United States or Mr. Universe.
The Democratic presidential contender exercises regularly, but over a 24-hour span this week, he took it to a new extreme.
Twice on Wednesday and again Thursday morning, Obama traveled to a lakefront apartment building near his Chicago home to work out with a friend at his gym. On Wednesday night, Obama also spent an hour at the East Bank Club, a mammoth exercise facility just north of the city's famous business Loop where he is known to play basketball.
On the former occasions, reporters accompanying Obama saw him get in and out of an SUV wearing a baseball hat, white T-shirt and black sweat pants. On the visit to the East Bank Club, Obama was dressed casually as if going out to dinner, wearing slacks, a blue blazer and flip-flops.
A distinct lack of visible sweat on the Illinois senator triggered questions about whether he was actually exercising or using the gym visits as cover for conducting vice presidential vetting or interviews.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton e-mailed a succinct, two-word answer: "Working out."
That view held credence among some of the photographers who regularly accompany Obama. They said that even when he shot hoops earlier this year with members of the University of North Carolina varsity men's basketball team, they didn't see Obama sweat.
At first blush the cynic in me initially thought of this: "Well of course. If he truly had been interviewing Democrats for the veep slot, he'd be sweating bullets." But then I saw this bit, also from the Weekly Standard:
The $52 million figure may not be a disaster for the Obama campaign, but it is hardly a success. Not just because it's far below what the
Obama campaign projected in June. It's a disappointment because it includes general election contributions from those who had previously maxed out. Remember also that unlike the money McCain is raising, which has to be spent by the time he receives $84 million in public financing, Obama's money needs to last all the way through the election.
With a burn rate of $42 million a month, Obama's campaign can just barely sustain its current levels of spending. And what's leftover may not be adequate to run the kind of campaign he needs to win. Just consider despite all the money he's raised, Obama has been outspent on television by 3 to 1 in the last two months. All the stagecraft and theatrics has come with a hefty cost.
That $42M per month feeds a campaign staff 5 times larger than what Bush fielded in 2004. Holy smokes. But can you see the connection here with the Tiger Beat AP story? One can only conclude that the Obama campaign has hired a staff of devoted followers to perform the candidate's essential bodily functions for him. Either that, or he really is The One.