Everyone needs a hobby. For many Americans, and not a few politicians, that hobby is golf. For Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, it's trying to re-elect the current president of the United States.
Recently named vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, Rybak visited both sides of Tampa Bay on Saturday to pump up the candidate who won't be on the ballot this Tuesday in Florida — Barack Obama.
Rybak's big event of the day was the christening of the new Obama for America office in St. Petersburg on Central Avenue. But the DNC was more than willing to make him available for any media outlet that desired him. The party was looking for some equal time to balance out the Republican candidates who have crisscrossed Florida over the past week, often criticizing the president — though happily for Democrats, making more headlines by bashing each other.
"The thing with Romney is," Rybak says at CL's Ybor City offices Saturday morning, "if you go to a dance and everybody on your side of the room collapses, and this woman across the room finally comes over and says, ‘I guess I’ll dance with you, because you’re the only one left,' it doesn’t make you Casanova, right?"
Like the rest of the Democratic establishment, Rybak isn't too hung up on dissing Newt Gingrich. The DNC has been targeting Romney all week in Florida, but Rybak is happier to extol Obama's first three years in office.
