Finally! Barack! Has Come Back to Nashua!

There’s something that’s bugged me about Barak Obama for a couple weeks and, until last night, I wasn’t able to identify exactly what it was. It wasn’t until I heard his concession speech in New Hampshire that it jumped out at me.

Barak Obama sounds just like The Rock.

If you slowed The Rock down just a little, or sped up Obama, you’d get pretty much the same timbre, the same pacing, and nearly the same delivery style.

It’s not just his speaking style. There are a few aspects of Obama’s campaign that mirror The Rock’s life and career. Both are children of mixed heritage (The Rock, whose real name is Dwayne Johnson is the grandson of legendary Samoan wrestler “High Chief” Peter Maivia and spent a lot of time in Hawaii and New Zealand with his Samoan relatives as a child). Both worked themselves up from relative obscurity to media stardom. The Rock billed himself as The People’s Champion, just like Obama. The Rock was an agent for Change, as he battled the establishment Vince McMahon every week on WWF Raw.

The Rock had a signature move called The Peoples’ Elbow. Obama has a signature move called “Fired Up! Ready to Go!”.

I know this looks like a silly comparison, but hang with me. Politics in the modern age is, at its heart, as fake as any professional wrestling match. All but a very few politicians, especially those running for President, are created. They are constructs built from bits of their real lives and personalities and big chunks of stuff that get appreciative oohs and aahs from focus groups and pollsters. They have their catch-phrases, the ways of getting cheap pop from their audiences, and they “turn heel “ or “turn face” in their campaign ads. They are cultivated to produce votes. Like wrestlers, they elicit reactions, not rational decisions.

Obama is just one of many but today, to me, he’s the obvious one.

After the jump I have a couple samples for your comparison.

Here’s Obama, from last night.

And Here’s The Rock ragging on his fellow wrestlers:

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Category: The 2008 Horse Race