If voting always went like this, maybe more people would head to the polls.
President Obama turned on his charm offensive while voting early in Illinois on Monday, using some smooth moves to diffuse what could have been an awkward encounter.
It started when a man, identified by CNN as Mike Jones, said, “Mr. President, don’t touch my girlfriend.” Rather than remind the man that the president has the entire force of the Secret Service at his will, Obama generously said, “I really wasn’t planning on it.”
As the girlfriend, Aia Cooper, apologized and laughed, President Obama launched into a conversation with himself, recapping the couple’s future conversations about it.
“There’s an example of a brother embarrassing me for no reason,” Obama said. “Just for no reason whatsoever. You’ll be going home and talking to all your friends about this … I can’t believe Mike, he’s such a fool. I was just mortified, but fortunately, fortunately, the president was really nice about it, and you know, it’s alright.”
Given that the entire encounter was about infinitely more pleasant than most encounters in Washington, the president capped things off by kissing Cooper anyway.
“Now he’s really jealous,” Obama said as they all laughed.
He probably has reason to be, since Cooper later reportedly told WLS-TV the kiss was “on the cheek, just the cheek — please Michelle, don’t come after me — just the cheek!”
Cooper said she and Jones had let two people go ahead of them, and “we didn’t think anything of it and when we got in, [Obama] was there.”
Attention, America: Show this encounter for Rock the Vote instead of Lil John’s video, please!
