Are we picking a president or a Best Friend?
BY BETH REINHARD
breinhard@herald.com
Hillary wants you to choose her campaign song. John would like to meet you on Key Biscayne. And Barack is inviting you to join him for dinner.
Is America looking for a president or a best friend?
Or perhaps even a friend with benefits -- just ask the hottie girl in a bikini and short-shorts singing ''I got a crush on Obama'' in a music video that's been seen more than 1.5 million times on YouTube.
Are we that far away from a slumber party where we get to choose what color nail polish Hillary Clinton wears to the next televised debate? Or a guys' night out where we get to recommend the best hair gel for Rudy Giuliani?
This is the presidential campaign where candidates not only want your vote, but they really, really want you to be their BFF. (For those over 30: Best Friends Forever.) And to sign up for their MySpace and Facebook pages.
The Obama campaign announced the results of a contest this week in which ``four lucky supporters have been selected to join Barack for an intimate dinner for five.''
His guests: Jennifer Lasko, a Lake Worth firefighter and paramedic; Margaret Thomas-Jordan, a Louisiana mother of two studying to be a nurse, whose husband is serving in Iraq; Haile Rivera, who works at a New York City food bank; and Michael Griffith, a miner in Nevada. (Dinner is free, but apparently you have to risk your life or be a professional do-gooder to break bread with the junior senator from Illinois.)
A NEW DAY
The days of Camelot are long gone. In 2008, you can be on a first-name basis with a presidential candidate simply by having a Yahoo account.
When John Edwards came to Key Biscayne earlier this month for a $15-per-person fundraiser, his campaign sent out e-mails with an alluring subject line: ``John would like to meet you.''
Blushing at the thought of Edwards saving me a seat, I put on my lip gloss and went. At the event, he asked everyone to take out their cellphones and text his campaign to connect with ``grass-roots change.''
TTYL, John!
Makes one nostalgic for the old-time fundraisers where only muckety-mucks were invited, and they were asked to pull out checkbooks, not BlackBerrys. (Actually, I hear they still have lots of those fundraisers.)
John is not the only one who likes to text. These days, voters can sign up to get daily text messages from several of the presidential candidates. Oh wait, I am getting one now from Hillary. . .
i wanna no what u thot of my Sopranos spoof?
Well, Hill, not only did I LOL, I LMAO and was ROFLMAO.
(Check it out at www.
hillaryclinton.com. It does David Chase proud.)
BUT IS HE LIKABLE?
The Republican candidates are pretty chummy too. Mitt Romney holds town hall meetings called ''Ask Mitt Anything.'' Anything? Isn't he familiar with the concept of TMI? (Over 30s: Too Much Information.)
The pundits say American voters chose George W. Bush over Al Gore and John Kerry because he was more ''likable.'' Considering Bush's poll numbers these days, maybe voters should hope this election is more than a Budweiser jingle contest.
Wait, now I'm getting a text message from my new pal, John. . .
im L8, had 2 stop 4 nu can of hair spray.
This long-distance relationship is driving me crazy.
L8r.
Beth Reinhard is the political writer for The Miami Herald.
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More Beth Reinhard
Beth Reinhard
breinhard@miamiherald.com
Beth Reinhard is The Miami Herald's political columnist. Born and raised in South Florida, she has been a reporter since 1991. She joined The Herald in 1998. More















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