It’s nine months until Election Day, but President Obama is already bringing out the big guns. Specifically, he is shouldering the Extreme Marshmallow Cannon. Obama walked into the State Dining Room at midday Tuesday and encountered 14-year-old Joey Hudy and the compressed-air cannon he invented to launch marshmallows as part of a science fair. “The Secret Service is going to be mad at me about this,” the president said, but he didn’t care. He asked Hudy to hand over the gun, told onlookers to step aside, pumped up the compressor — and shot a confection across the room Thomas Jefferson used as his office. Under the watchful gaze of an Abraham Lincoln portrait, the projectile narrowly missed a window and smacked into a wall near the entrance to the Red Room.
Minutes later, the commander in chief went downstairs to the East Room to report on his marksmanship, telling the assembled TV cameras that he “shot a marshmallow through an air gun, which was very exciting.” It was so exciting that White House press secretary Jay Carney led off Tuesday afternoon’s briefing with more talk of the Extreme Marshmallow Cannon. “I hope you enjoyed the science fair,” he said. “The president sure did.” Carney then moved on to discuss “another moment of the president’s day that the president enjoyed” — chatting with the New York Giants head coach.
Obama suddenly seems to be enjoying himself quite a bit, and no wonder: He just might be the luckiest man alive. At the last possible moment to save his re-election, the economy is beginning to hum, as evidenced by last week’s jobs report. And Obama’s Republican opponents are shaping up to be as formidable as, well, marshmallows. While Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are making each other unelectable, the president is singing Al Green, congratulating Super Bowl winners, playing with science projects, raising obscene amounts of campaign cash and watching his poll numbers soar.
Own worst enemies
According to historical patterns, the high unemployment rate and slow economic growth should combine to doom Obama. But historical patterns do not take into account an opponent who says he enjoys firing people. This week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Obama with a nine-point lead over Romney and a 15-point lead over Gingrich.