Knox — ‘Secretary of swing’ helps keep Obama mellow

Jack Knox is a former Kamloops newspaper journalist who writes for the Victoria Times-Colonist.

COLUMN — Interesting story in the New York Times this week on Victoria’s man in the White House and his role in Barack Obama’s life.

Marv Nicholson, you might recall, is the local boy who has been an Obama aide since 2007.

His official title is White House trip director, but his more important, less defined job is simply to be the president’s no-stress friend, the guy he turns to when he wants to shed the weight of the world and just hang out or play golf.

The “secretary of swing” is how the Times’ Jason Horowitz described the St. Michaels University School grad.

“Mr. Nicholson, 42, has played golf with the president about 140 times, far more than anyone else in or out of government,” Horowitz wrote in his profile. “At a time in Mr. Obama’s presidency when political, national security and sartorial critics are chanting, ‘You’re doing it wrong,’ Mr. Nicholson … is a trusted source of good vibes. A non-judgmental figure who will never question the president’s double-bogeys or his shifting red line in Syria, Mr. Nicholson, a geography major from the University of Western Ontario, rounds out the president’s foursomes and soothes his frayed feelings.”

Nicholson didn’t speak to the Times, but Obama himself did. “Every president needs a space where he can be quiet and let loose and feel normal,” he told the newspaper. “And when I’m with Marvin, we can talk the same way we would if we were just a couple of guys having a beer and whacking a ball around.”

Golf is what led, indirectly, to Nicholson’s White House role. After moving to Victoria from Ontario in 1987 (his mother, American-born Liz Beatty, still lives in North Saanich), he spent years playing and working at Saanich’s Cordova Bay and Prospect Lake golf courses. In 1999, he landed in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he caddied for Sen. John Kerry. That, in turn, led to a job in Kerry’s office, then a position on the Democrat’s 2004 presidential campaign. Remembering Nicholson from that last job, Obama’s team picked him up for their own run for the presidency.

Nicholson and Obama hit it off, the former becoming the one the latter would turn to when needing to relieve pressure. Horowitz referred to former Obama aide Reggie Love’s account of the day that U.S. navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden: “While most top officials were in the Situation Room, the president ‘was like, I’m not, I’m not going to be down there, I can’t watch this entire thing,’ Love said. The president retreated to a private dining room where he, [White House photographer Pete] Souza and Mr. Nicholson ‘must have played 15 hands, 15 games of Spades.’ ”

Nicholson isn’t the only Victorian to hit the links with the president. His older brother, Walter, who also now lives in Washington, has joined them more than a dozen times.

Walt demurred Thursday when asked to talk about golfing with his brother and Obama (can’t betray the presidential happy place), but did offer an illustrative anecdote from election night in 2008. Walt was with his mother and aunt Mary — Marv’s godmother — in Chicago when Obama entered the friends-and-family tent to celebrate with his closest group. “Eventually, he got to Mom and Mary and was so nice to them, saying how important Marv was to the campaign’s success. Then he caught me and proceeded to tell me that Marv is ‘the greatest guy.’

“That was pretty cool. But the better part was the morning after.” The Nicholson brothers were leaving the Chicago Fairmont when one of the room attendants, an older woman, stepped away from her cart to hug Marv. Then the doorman did the same, declaring: “We did it!”

“They hugged for a second and then Marv introduced me. The doorman shook my hand and said, ‘Your brother is the greatest guy.’

“Here we were, standing in Chicago, and in about eight hours I have had the president-elect of the United States and a hotel doorman tell me my brother is ‘the greatest guy.’ It couldn’t have been a better example of who Marv is.”

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