Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro — the leading contender for Democratic vice presidential candidate— is raising eyebrows for a cadence that bears an uncanny resemblance to President Obama.
The impression — already being mocked on late-night talk shows — is especially curious given the former president cut his teeth as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, while Shapiro is a white Jew from Kansas City, Mo., who went to Hebrew day school and served as a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Force.
Obama fans have taken notice, with at least one member of the X peanut gallery labeling the governor “Baruch Obama.” Daily Show host Ronny Chieng quipped that he sounded like “Josh Hussein Shapiro.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama asked him for his birth certificate,” Chieng added.
One Dem operative lamented “I wish you didn’t point that out. It’s creepy.”
During an Obama-esque performance at a Kamala Harris rally last week, Shapiro said: “You could not have a clearer contrast in this race, you could not have a clearer contrast between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. And let me tell you something, he’s pretty afraid, ya’ll see, he’s backing out of the debate now. He’s afraid to stand toe-to-toe with our vice president.”
Other stump lines have included references to Maya Angelou — an Obama favorite.
“I hear it,” said disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who came up politically with Obama in The Prairie State in the early 2000s. “He’s probably . . . TIVOing Obama speeches and trying to get all the mannerisms down. It seems to me like an intentional impersonation.
“It reminds a lot of how I copy Elvis when I sing ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ which I did in prison in my band G-Rod and the Jailhouse Rockers,” Blago told The Post, referencing the prison sentence her served after he was convicted of trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat.
Professor Rita Singh, an expert in human voice profiling at Carnegie Mellon University, said she believed Shapiro was not consciously imitating Obama.
“It is likely that the voices of Josh Shapiro and former President Obama sound similar . . . specifically because of multiple similarities between the two gentlemen’s physical and vocal tract characteristics,” she offered.
On Friday, Shapiro addressed the issue when a reporter asked him to respond to GOP veep nominee, Sen. J.D. Vance, who said “if I really tried to do a bad impression of Barack Obama, that’s what it would sound like.”
“Barack Obama was probably our most gifted orator of my time, so that’s kind of a weird insult,” Shapiro sniffed.
American politics has a long tradition of garden-variety politicos looking to latch on to more popular or iconic figures in their party. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio famously attempted to ape President Trump’s trash talking during the 2016 presidential primaries. While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has notably mimicked Trump’s recognizable hand gestures while on the stump.
In the 1984 Democratic primary, Gary Hart was called out by commentators over his supposed cosplaying of former President John F. Kennedy.
‘Why do you imitate John Kennedy so much?” NBC stalwart Roger Mudd asked Hart in March of that year. ”All the motions with the necktie, and the chopping of the air, and the hand in the pocket … all those people, people all over the country say, all he’s doing is imitating John Kennedy.”
Team Shapiro declined to comment.
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