What do the President Obama is “smooth without big handles,” and he “got his mojo back”?

Question

There were two “fancy” phrases –“he is smooth without big handles” and “he is getting his mojo back” in describing recent images of President Obama’s in New York Times’ (April 14) article titled “Come Back, Sarah Palin!”

“Saturday Night Live has always struggled with its Obama impersonation because Obama is “smooth without big handles,” as the show’s inimitable satirist Jim Downey puts it.

Seth Meyers, the clever “S.N.L.” head writer and “Weekend Update” anchor. recalled that, after the Navy Seals raid that killed Osama last year, the show did a sketch with Obama “getting his mojo back.” “It would be really fun to see that Obama again on the show, the confident Obama who comes out on the campaign trail,” he said. “

From the context of the above lines, “get one’s mojo back” sounds like “get back one’s guts or perk up,” but I’m not sure. What do both phrases of “smooth without big handles” and “get one’s mojo back“ which were shown in the quotation marks in the text mean?

Are they both well-established phrases or idioms?

Answer 1

Mojo is like "personal magic" or an "innate otherworldly power". "the mysterious essence or momentum you possess that makes good things happen for you" — something which, like luck, may be lost or recovered, unaccountably, at various times in your life (see comments below by @Robusto)

I also had/have another meaning of Mojo: That Mojo is the essence of your personality that makes people recognize you, take notice of you etc. When you get your mojo back, you get back to being the person people recognize as [insert great personality trait(s) here].

This is an idiom.

In the next case, "smooth without big handles", from a comedian's perspective, simply means it's not easy to "pick up" the personality style of Obama, just like you'd find it difficult to pick up something that was "smooth without big handles". It's easy to "pick up" some people and impersonate them, you pick up their traits (see: Shatner, Walken impersonations for examples). This is not an idiom, it's just a verbal description of how Jim Downey describes the issues with his impersonation of Obama.

Answer 2

In this context, I would think it was an intentional reference to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, where it refers to Powers' virility, as well as his ability to get things done.