President Obama Tells a Rally Crowd His Voters Don't Show Up for Anyone Else, Asks Them to 'Pretend, Please, That I'm on the Ballot'

COLUMBIA, S.C. — President Obama, campaigning Friday night for a Senate candidate whose name appears on an actual ballot, asked the crowd to disregard that ballot and vote instead on an imaginary one with his own name on it, a turnout strategy the campaign described as motivational and political scientists described as new.

"My people don't come out and vote for senators, congressmen and the others when I'm not running," the President told the rally, in what aides insisted was an observation and not a complaint. "So what I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I'm on the ballot."

The request comes at the end of a primary month in which six candidates endorsed by President Obama lost their nominating contests anyway, a record that suggests the President's supporters may already be pretending he is on the ballot and voting accordingly for someone else. The rally was meant to lift a Senate hopeful into Tuesday's runoff, which the President promoted at length before returning to the subject of himself.

Opposition strategists seized on the remark, pointing out that a president telling voters his agenda is effectively on the ballot is a sentence the other party usually spends October denying. Allies of the President said the line was plainly a joke, and that the President was merely describing, with unusual candor, the electorate's actual behavior.

"He is the brand," one adviser said. "The candidates are the retail locations."

The Press's turnout desk notes that both parties' presidents have historically tried to convert their popularity into midterm votes, and both parties' presidents have historically been roasted for saying the quiet part about whose name matters. At press time the imaginary ballot had not been printed, though several supporters were reported to have filled it out anyway.