Livni Bobs Around at Tel Aviv Nightclub, Has a Fan in ‘Livni Boy’

By Nathan Jeffay February 6, 2009

Kadima leader Tzipi Livni is known for her rather stuffy and humorless image. This week she attempted to shake it. Literally.

She tried her best to dance the night away, or at least the precise segment of it scheduled by her publicity people, at a party organized by young Kadima supporters at the super-trendy Tel Aviv nightclub Haoman 17.

The late-night news shows, accustomed to commenting on her political moves, spent a considerable amount of airtime analyzing her dance moves. And they weren’t too impressed. Her style was a mixture of over-exaggerated head-bopping and the kind of enthusiastic clapping done by people at weddings who are trying to look as if they’re taking part while avoiding dancing.

Trying to capture the young vote has been a high priority for Kadima in recent weeks — and it hasn’t been easy. Part of the problem is that the party has is that sober centrism doesn’t have the same appeal to Israeli youth as more forthrightly ideological parties. “I am a pragmatist, favoring a central path over the traditional definitions of right and left” is hardly a slogan likely to play well on college campuses.

But it’s not stopped some young people trying to portray Kadima and Livni cool. Attempting to replicate the success of the “Obama Girl” video, an Israeli actor named Liron Avisar cast himself as “Livni Boy” in a video he posted on YouTube.

“Oh Tzipi, you’re what I wanted, all that I expected from a political leader,” the Hebrew-English chorus goes. “I don’t want Ehud. I don’t trust Bibi. Tzipi if you let me, I will be your man. Just tell me yes.”

Labor leader Ehud Barak has also tried to get in with the hip crowd during this campaign. He appeared as himself in “A Wonderful Country,” a satirical television show, which regularly has a laugh at his expense.

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