Building a better Obama, II

It's the economy, stupid.

1. Obama's town halls read well to me, and I'm a severe skeptic (no!). Get the spontaneous and funny Obama back in that context, talking about real issues (as in York). Make sure a serious conversation is going on, not audience cheering and fandom shit. Propagate as transcripts and virally and work up to television. Pre-empts the R "elitist" attack, which everybody knows is coming.

2. Obama's been acting like a President, kinda, first with the European trip and then with the Katrina stuff. So, turn that up. Get some task forces going now -- the next financial implosion could be an excuse. Do this with the Congressional Democrats -- integrate their legislative program for the Fall with this idea.

3. Ask Hillary to hold a Truman Commission investigation into war profiteeering when Congress comes back into session. Blunts the "we won" thing with from the Rs.

4. Have Axelrod stop the payments to Kos and muzzle the OFB immediately; they're getting in the way of any real message. Everybody I talk to likes Palin, hates her policies, and thinks the whole thing is an awful distraction. In fact, I think a Sister Souljah moment on the OFB would go over just fine -- drugging the Down Syndrome baby would go over well, I would think, and strike a blow for the civility he says he craves.

5. Figure out what the fuck to do with Joe Biden. Maybe a series on foreign policy?

6. The Clintons will, indeed, do whatever Obama asks, and do it well. The problem with asking them is that Obama tends to remind half the party of what might have been when he does. Why not send Bill Clinton on a high profile international mission, like Georgia? The result could only be good, and Obama would look good having done it.

7. Publish a list of SC nominees (McCain did). That puts any doubt about Roe to bed -- and also will generate a shitstorm on the right, which could be leveraged.

I go back to the idea that the American people are ready to listen and think. Have been since 2006. Start from the economy with that perception.

UPDATE I guess this could be interpreted to say that Kos and Tier Two should shut the fuck up. Well, since they're either part of a campaign or think of themselves that way, and they're hurting they're hurting they're canidate, yes, they should shut the fuck up. This isn't a free speech issue.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

it certainly would help if Obama started walking with a new style and talking a new game. Perhaps he could grow his hair a little longer, too, to make him look a little more liberal? And lay off the lipstick. Certainly that would improve his standing with American voters.

If only he would start "acting" and "talking" like a "Real Democrat" I can "act" like I'm voting for one and then I can "act" upset and surprised when he "betrays" us. But then they'll tell us if we'd only looked through unfiltered glasses he was telegraphing who he really was the whole time. So get over it. Oh pshaw.

But the game of politics is almost as much fun as monopoly, don't you think? As long as you remember in both the currency is patently fake. Unfortunately, in the former, there are real-life consequences. But hey, maybe if we ingest some magic mushrooms we won't notice.

The Obama we've seen till now is the Obama we would actually get, no matter how well he acts out rewritten scripted dialogue from now till November 4.

VL - Sorry for the snark. A far better mind than mine sometimes references something like "vomit in the mouth..."

at such a late date.

absolutely nothing will solve his problems--he needs to shore up the base, and still not turn off those who already support him, and get all those who are wary of him--and then he needs to grab some swingstate Republicans on top of that.

Seriously, supporting those issues and giving specific proposals--check the Clintons, the former Dem platforms, Senator Russ, etc.

If Obama could somehow change to Hillary as VP--Joe seems to understand--they would win.

And for me, firing the entire DNC leadership and RBC committee, apologizing, correcting the record, and refilling the positions with trustworthy people while giving lots of money to a neutral organization to monitor this year's election would help a lot. That little thing called the vote, ya know...

sort of, in this interview with CBS.

What people are looking for is a real analysis of the economy, a real analysis of how you're going to turn things around, a real analysis of how Americans are going to succeed.

I think it's hard to present in this environment. But, nevertheless, if you schedule a series of speeches and you execute them — if there's one thing the Obama campaign has been able to do throughout the course of the last year and a half, it's been able to have a success by giving a serious speech on the serious issues of the day. And I think that's the most important place for them to go right now.

And, also good, he points to the utter disgrace of the media:

And I think that that's a real problem growing out of this election. The media now, all of the media — not just Fox News, that was perceived as highly partisan — but all of the media is now being viewed as partisan in one way or another. And that is an unfortunate development.

Read the whole thing; it's an amazing performance that explains a lot to me about why the Clintons have used Penn, whatever his uncongenial connections or activities.

Maybe we should invite him to blog here (insert smiley).

Policy not party!

[Apologies if some version of this shows up multiple times. It seemed to disappear into the ether.]

"... his mistakes have a common thread - pride.

Obama seems to want to do things on his own, and on his own terms. It’s understandable. Obama has his own crowd – from Chicago, from Harvard, and from a new cadre of wealthy, Ivy-educated movers and shakers.

“He’s an arrogant S.O.B.,” one of the latter told me today. “He wants to do it his way, and his way alone.” ..."

-- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26640489/

If not, there are plenty of other threads for the remainder.

A few from me:

- Very few people can do this, but knowing that he is not naturally empathetic, perhaps he could at least try to act like he gives a damn about economically struggling individuals and families. One of my criticisms of him is that I never felt that his candidacy was first and foremost about the country, rather, he was able to run for president and thus he ran for president. Of course, he was happy if his possible presidency could help people, but that always seemed in the background from my perspective of his motives.

- Stop, and stop now, saying things such as the surge surprised everyone, bending on drilling, bending on FISA, etc...I don't know why he thought he was falling in the polls because of the superior side of the issues he stands on. Being so new to the national scene the question of whether the country could trust him was always going to be there, if he thinks he can gain support from the middle and right by flip-flopping, he's wrong. Not only is his continuously alienating the Democratic base, but it's becoming quite apparent by polling that the folks he's pandering to know they are being pandered to.

- To continue on the last point, he needs to stop chasing the mythical "Obamacans". First of all, they weren't ever that large or cohesive and honest a group to beging with, secondly and most importantly, they aren't Obamacans, anymore. Palin took care of that. Those disaffected Republicans weren't voting on issues, they were voting on celebrity. They've got themselves a new rockstar, now, and she an honest-to-God Republican to boot.

I'm so incredibly cynical, now. I think he's gone past the point of no return, to be honest. I don't think it's possible for him to come running back home to the base without him looking desperate and calculating. He had a chance immediately at the closing of the primaries to fill a vacuum by running as Mr. Democrat. Instead, by continuing the whole failed "post-partisan" schtick, he essentially let the PUMAs fester, grow, and congea and made it so that he completely lost the trust of them, and made the rest of the base skeptics, at best. I just don't know what we're going to do. I don't think that genie is going back in the bottle.

i'm a 2-issue voter this time around -- health care and war.

he could start promising -- today -- to implement hr676 in his first 100 days in office. and only full and immediate implementation of hr676 is going to count with me, none of this market experiment crap. it'll solve two problems with one fix -- covers everybody and gets all the young healthy people paying into medicare now, before it goes under.

i liked john edwards ok [and voted for him in my non-primary] but i wasn't planning to do so. then i heard him say he'd take congress' health care away from them if they didn't pass universal health care within 6 months of his inauguration. got my vote.

timetable for leaving iraq and afghanistan = 6 months, no equivocating. and i mean leave -- none of this redeploying to some perimeter to be ready to rush in and quell the inevitable violence that's going flare up. and no going into pakistan or iran either.

pie in the sky, asking for these things, i realize that, but nothing less will get my vote.

You sound like you'd have been a Nader voter from the start, then. Did John Edwards propose total withdrawl from the region? I can't remember to be honest.

Anything can happen in 8 weeks, and I don't want to be a defeatist, but speaking for myself, my own determined rejection of him took a long time and some doing. I'm stuck to the Democratic Party like flypaper, and it took months and months of this circus, with its daily demonstrations of his evil mojo, to get me where I am today.

So, personal disappointments aside, the question now is obviously: What do they have to do to get the people whose minds are amenable to, um, change, to do just exactly that in the next 8 weeks?

Mine is made up, so I can't answer based on what would appeal to me personally. But a lot of people out there really do know we're in really deep shit, and it's not because dirty hippies are rude and uncivil, which pretty much seems to be his platform to this point.

I can only say "Me, too!" to a lot of what's already been said. I have nothing new to add. If I did have to pick one thing, though, I guess it would be to proudly come out of the closet as a Democrat - it's the party of civil rights, the party of FDR, and Bill "balanced budget" Clinton. These are good things. Talk about the debt and deficit every day. EVERY GODDAMN DAY. No exceptions. Just do it.

There's not much he can do. So, I also hang out at Sadly, No! and places like that, where I've become a barely-tolerated pariah among a lot of commenters because I dare to bring them The Bad News.

The problem is that some of them (ardent Obama supporters) specifically DO NOT WANT the campaign that Clinton would have run. And if you try to explain that some of those strategies might have worked in the general (shouted over cries of "Mark Penn!!"), you are confronted with sputtering rage.

Consequently, the kinds of things that might win over the voters that he is losing would alienate his base, and possibly turn off what money spigot he can count on now.

It's always been my impression of the situation that, as was said above, most of Nader's voters would have stayed home. And, if I remember correctly, when those that did vote for Nader in Florida were polled about which of the two major party candidates they'd vote for if they had to vote for either one the number came to some inconsequential difference if I remember, correctly.

I was one of those 'blame Nader' kids in 2000, but I realize now I was only dealing in that because it was easy and popular, at the time. I'm now totally on increasing representation of third parties in our democractic process.

Getting back to what Obama could do, which I'm not really sure he could or would do.

Also, as to HOW he campaigns, to echo two points already made above:

• There's something off about the way he responds to attacks. It's not about you, Obama. Get over yourself. [This is part of why I can't bring myself to vote for him. He seems way too thin-skinned, and having just gone through one presidency like that I'm not anxious for another.]

• Don't tell people what we feel, as especially don't tell other people what we are feeling when we'll then have the opportunity to read what you said to them about us. Feel our pain. (Now where have I heard something like that before?) Obama often comes off as if he's saying "I know what you feel, but if you were as smart as I am you wouldn't feel that way." (Also the various "If they listened to me they'd know that I'm the right candidate for them" versions.) No one likes condescension.

And st some point, sooner rather than later, a clear, unambiguous, no-hedging, no others issues raised, statement that sexist and misogynistic language is out of place in this campaign and in the national discourse in general.

There's literally nothing he could do between now and November to get my vote (matters only to me anyway because my state is overwhelmingly an Obama state) because anything massively wonderful, things that might have done the trick even a few months ago, I simply wouldn't be able to take seriously.

I'm voting for McKinney-- mostly terrific lefty platform, black female. Above all, I think we really, really don't want to give the Dem. Party and the pundits the excuse to label the protest vote as racist.

Announcing that would be disastrous. It would solidify his support among solid lefty-liberal types, but he mostly has their support. It would cost him support among Joe & Jane6Packs who are currently supporting him or leaning his way, and among moderates in general who are leaning his way. You can't win with the base alone. Also, announcing such a thing would leave him open to a firestorm of criticism about his not understanding foreign policy, and would allow McCain the oppty. to contrast himself with Obama as Mr. Pragmatic and Sensible.

It's a nice idea in theory, but....