As Obama's Star Rises, Other Dems Say They'll Out-Nice Him

WASHINGTON, D.C.  As Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) took the first step yesterday to launch a presidential campaign he says will restore a spirit of common purpose to American politics, other potential candidates responded by outlining plans to out-nice him by whatever means necessary.

Obama:  "If you kids don't behave, we're not going to have any more assemblies."

"Senator Barack, or Obama, or whichever part of his name is first this week, would not be a nicer president than Hillary Clinton," said Julie Sanford, assistant chief of staff to the junior senator from New York and former first lady.  "First of all, most people will spot Senator Clinton five niceness points right off the bat just for being a woman," Sanford said.  "She doesn't do all that scratching and spitting and stuff that male candidates do."

Clinton:  "Any candidate who gets in this race thinking he's going to be nicer than me had better be wearing his steel jock strap."

The other announced candidates for the Democratic nomination, Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden and millionaire trial lawyer John Edwards, have similarly filed papers to establish exploratory committees, in each case accompanied by a letter from an adult confirming that they are capable of being nice, if required by law.  Edwards' was signed by his wife.

Dodd:  "The waitress sandwich?  That was Teddy's idea."

Dodd has sought to distance himself from a somewhat chequered past that includes some acts that were not so nice, including an incident in which he and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) accosted a waitress in a Washington, D.C. restaurant from opposite sides and squeezed her between their bodies, forming a "waitress sandwich."  "My conscience is clear on that one," Dodd replied angrily to reporters outside of an International House of Pancakes in Arlington, Virginia, where he was speaking at a symposium on global economic issues. "We did not use any mayo or other condiments that contain transfats."

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman