Politicians dance. It's part of the job description. Campaigning is about convincing voters that you are smart and capable enough to lead them, but it's also important to show people that you are "one of them." Just a regular gal or guy who can relate to the problems facing the everyday, average person on the street. For some reason, this inevitably involves busting a move to some popular or culturally-significant song.
Unfortunately, politicians don't TYPICALLY train for this sort of thing early on. It's de-emphasized when compared to, say, having a position on the issues with wide appeal, or surrounding one's self with capable advisors, or cultivating a really nice, thick head of hair. So even a cursory YouTube search will reveal a WHOLE LOT of clips of politicians embarrassing themselves by wiggling along with popular tunes.
Below are the Top 10 Most Awkward Politician Dance Videos. Tread carefully... you've been warned...
http://www.ranker.com/list/the-11-most-awkward-dancing-politicians/keaton,
Antonio Villaraigosa
During the 2007 Chabad Telethon, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appeared (in the spirit of mitzvah!) to help with the fundraising efforts. Somehow, by his calculations, this involved doing a weird Israeli folk dance (sometimes called the Yemenite dance) that involves bouncing around in place and flailing one's hands around. I have to say... it does look pretty exhausting. Villaraigosa's lucky he didn't plotz!
Barack Obama
Our coolest President to date, Barack Obama, has been known to publicly dance on several occasions.
Boris Yeltsin
Is Boris Yeltsin engaging in a popular Russian folk dance, or doing his best impression of the Martin Short "Ed Grimley" character from "Saturday Night Live"? It's honestly a bit hard to tell...
Yeltsin's successor - Vladimir Putin - is also rumored to be quite a snazzy dancer, though somehow, he's managed to keep all the clips of him in action off of YouTube. Possibly through KGB connections. We can't be sure.
Colin Powell
Otherwise known as "The only clip more embarrassing to Colin Powell than his infamous UN address."
Seriously, to those Americans too young to vividly recall the Macarena craze, consider yourself one of the lucky ones. America for a time was gripped by a collective insanity leading to this song/dance becoming massively, non-ironically popular for a time, with a fervor that's hard to fully comprehend now that it has passed.
Dmitry Medvedev
Wait, actually, the Russian President has some serious dance moves!
George Bush
A number of clips of President Bush doing silly dances surfaced during his campaigns and administration. He's just kind of a silly man. Silly dances seemed to come naturally. (More on this in a bit.)
But perhaps no video of Bush shaking his groove thing became more infamous than this selection from Malaria Awareness Day, 2008. Here's Bush, at the White House, performing a traditional African dance in SUCH an alien, other-worldly fashion, it almost looks like he's not fully in control of his limbs.
Hillary Clinton
First up, here's the former First Lady getting what she later described as "a pretty good workout" at a West Philadelphia community center.
The dance itself - an amalgam of swaying and head-bobbing that resembles the sort of pattern any middle-aged white lady might put together extemporaneously - wouldn't really be so bad if it weren't for that big, ear-to-ear grin HilRod wears plastered all over her face for the entire session. It's like The Joker and your great-aunt Bernice had a love child which has now been invited to wear a red blazer and attend a catered affair.
And now, a bonus clip from the 2009 Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum (or AGOA) dinner, in which Hillary performs a traditional African dance. If you ever wanted to see the Secretary of State get low... here's your chance:
Karl Rove
The yearly TV/Radio Correspondents Dinner is a chance for members of the press and the politicians they cover to get together and destroy any semblance of journalistic integrity. NO! I mean, it's a chance for them to hang out and enjoy one anothers' company in a relaxed, entertaining environment. Yeah, that's the ticket.
At the 2007 event, a comedian invited Bush advisor Karl Rove, "Meet the Press" host David Gregory and a few other notables on stage for an impromptu hip-hop performance. The result was every bit as painful as it sounds, like Rove bopping and bouncing along to a ludicrous rap song called "MC Rove," the lyrics of which explore his love of killing small animals. (No, seriously. That's what the song's about.)
Rick Perry
This clip of Perry celebrating Hannukah 2010 with a collection of rabbis started making the Internet rounds in the Fall of 2011, even earning a coveted spot on "The Daily Show" Moment of Zen. It's hard to even put into words the look of extreme discomfort and uncertainty on Perry's face throughout this entire clip. He has about as much confidence doing a traditional Jewish dance as he would performing a traditional Jewish bris.
Michelle Obama
First Lady Michelle Obama has been using her "Let's Move!" campaign to encourage young people to be more healthy and active. As part of her outreach efforts, she's also graciously agreed to personally start teaching classrooms of kids how to Dougie. (Well, they keep asking SOMEONE to teach them... it's about time an adult took a bit of initiative.)
Michelle's variation looks a lot - to me - like the Roger Rabbit as opposed to the Dougie. Which, of course, is the dance Nancy Reagan used to teach us when I was but a lad... Those were the days.