Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, the leading Democratic vice presidential candidate, is drawing attention for his striking similarity to President Obama’s speaking style.
The impression, already being mocked on late-night talk shows, is especially odd given that the former president cut his teeth as a community activist on Chicago’s South Side, while Shapiro is a white Jew from Kansas City, Missouri, who went to Hebrew day school and served in the Israel Defense Forces.
Obama fans have been taking notice, with at least one X Peanuts Gallery They call the governor “Baruch Obama.” The Daily Show Host Ronny Chieng joked that he sounded like “Josh Hussain Shapiro.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if President Obama asked for my birth certificate,” Chien added.
“Please don’t point that out. It’s creepy,” lamented one Democrat.
“You couldn’t have a starker contrast in this race. You couldn’t have a starker contrast than Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. And let me tell you, he’s very afraid, and as you know, he’s backed away from debates. He’s afraid to face our vice president,” Shapiro said.
Other speeches included references to Maya Angelou, a favorite of Obama’s.
“I can hear it,” says Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced former governor of Illinois, who ran politics with Obama in the Prairie State in the early 2000s. “He’s probably recording Obama’s speeches on TIVO and trying to copy all his mannerisms. It seems like an intentional imitation to me.”
“I have great memories of singing Elvis’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ in prison with my band, G-Rod and the Jailhouse Rockers,” Blago told The Washington Post, referring to the time he served time after being convicted of trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat.
Rita Singh, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and an expert on voice profiling, said she didn’t think Shapiro was consciously imitating Obama.
“The similarity between Josh Shapiro and former President Obama’s voices is likely due to the many similarities between the two men’s physical characteristics and vocal tract characteristics,” she said.
Mr. Shapiro addressed the issue on Friday when a reporter asked him for a response to a comment made by Sen. J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, in which he said, “If I really tried to do a bad imitation of Barack Obama, that’s what it would sound like.”
“It’s kind of a strange insult because Barack Obama was probably the most gifted public speaker of my time.” Shapiro snorted.
American politics has a long tradition of run-of-the-mill politicians trying to hang on to party favorites and iconic figures: Florida Senator Marco Rubio famously tried to imitate President Trump’s epithets during the 2016 presidential primary, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is known for mimicking Trump’s signature hand gestures while speaking.
During the 1984 Democratic primary, Gary Hart was criticized by commentators for cosplaying as former President John F. Kennedy.
“Why does he do so many John Kennedy imitations?” NBC regular Roger Mudd asked Hart in March of that year. “The way he tightens his tie, the way he cuts the air, the way he puts his hands in his pockets…the whole country says all he does is imitate John Kennedy.”
Team Shapiro declined to comment.
