Second Term Be Damned, Obama’s Gotta Go For Broke

What's the worst that could happen?

“Our generation is screwed,” said a twentysomething comic book artist I met last week. “So I’m going for broke.”

Going for broke, for this comic book artist, meant no longer toting his portfolio around to design firms and interviewing for jobs that don’t exist. Instead he’s decided he’s going to spend his time doing the one thing he loves most—creating comic art. “I may go broke going for broke,” he said, “but I’m broke now. At least this way I’ll be happy and broke.”

Out of the mouth of comic book artists! Going for broke may just be the best rallying cry I’ve heard for our times yet. Playing it safe sure won’t get you anywhere.

Just look at Obama. He keeps playing it safe, keeps thinking he can play nice with the angry birds that hate his guts. Where’s that getting him? Back to Chicago after one sad sack term?

Maybe.

That being the case, the Prez ought to take the young comic book artist’s advice, go for broke, hit the road and lobby in no uncertain terms for the one thing we know he believes in most: the need for corporate and inheritance fat cats to dig into their deep pockets and ante up.

Hell, who ain’t for that?

You? You’re for it, right?

The middle class? Check.

The underclass? Please.

The fat cats themselves? Okay, maybe not so much.

But even among the cash money set the bet here is that the Big O could find a congregate of reasonably minded prosperous chaps willing to walk the tax-the-rich plank for the good of the country. They may be a little hard to rally, but pressed they’ll come through. Just dial up Hollywood for starters and then chase down the new rich social network upstarts after that.

The angry birds on the other side will respond with a take-no-prisoners rhetorical blitzkrieg.

He’ll be the anti-American. Again. The foreigner. Again. The socialist. Again.

But when that happens all Obama has to do is flash that seductive smile that’s gone missing over the last few years, and say this: “You believe these cheeseballs?”

Or words to that effect.

It’s the thunderbolt we’ve been waiting for.

Then he should take to the tube and tell us he’s going to create jobs by rebuilding our streets, our bridges, our airports—our entire infrastructure.

“Let’s get busy, y’all,” he might want to say, clapping his hands and ending the speech that will define his presidency.

The angry birds will go into cardiac arrest.

And who knows? Maybe they’ll rally the country against him, mobilize the haters, convince enough people that he’s not one of us and send him back to Chitown after one term.

Really, would that be the worst thing? The last president got two terms and how did that work out for him?

Better to go for broke, Mr. President. All the kids are doing it.

Tim Whitaker (twhitaker@mightywriters.org) is the executive director of Mighty Writers, a nonprofit program that inspires city kids to write.