Obama's Biden-esque strategy: More goofy moments to contrast with Romney

In this late stage of his difficult and hard-fought re-election campaign, President Barack Obama has been Biden’d. Before his pizza flight, Obama had taken a beer tour across Iowa and felt the spiked-up died-blue hair of a boy in Oak Harbor, Ohio, seeking connection through authentic and somewhat odd moments preserved and spread virally not in slick television ads or fawning press accounts, but in off-kilter images from onlookers’ mobile phones.

There’s a reason for this new looseness: Call it the “More Human Than Mitt” campaign. But Obama’s posture also reflects a recognition that the YouTube era of 2008 — in which any small slip would explode into a centralized public conversation — has been replaced by a goofier new atmosphere, in which moments of surprise and emotional connection can resonate through the culture at astounding speed, leaving aides and critics alike flabbergasted.