Advice to Obama

Among the many bad things about losing is that everybody feels they can give you unsolicited advice. Which is just what I'm going to do now.

I'll start by crediting Al G. at the Field with getting into "print" first with this, although I've been thinking this for the past several days, and especially last night: Obama talks about change, about turning the page. He ought to think about changing his stump speech, and turning that page. As Al points out, everybody has heard it, and because Clinton changed hers so much and so often, she got featured in the news more often.

He made some progress in that direction last night, when it was about half new. His emphasis on patriotic themes will play well in PA, and he hit on something that will work for him when he must take on Hillary--he never said Hillary Clinton without saying "and John McCain." They are in fact making the same charges, and it is worth reminding Democrats that Hillary Clinton is saying the same things about a Democrat as the Republican nominee. This also allows him to battle McCain at the same time as he fends off Clinton.

But he isn't going to inspire by saying the same things in the same way. His two-minute TV spot was strong, but old. And therefore, it wasn't so strong.

Al G. makes some other more tactical observations: that the Obama campaign didn't sweat the rural areas as they did before, and that Bill Clinton, under the radar, made countless appearances in rural areas to secure that support. When the history is written, winning the Texas popular vote (however slightly) was probably more Bill than Hillary.

Pennsylvania is going to be a difficult test for Obama. But he doesn't have quite so much ground to make up (he was down only 5% or so in a recent poll, though Hillary's lead is probably going back up in the next poll as a result of Ohio.) And even though he can't count on Independents in the Democrat-only primary, he also doesn't have to contend with the Rush Limbaugh Republican crossover mischief-making that sent votes to Hillary in Texas and Ohio.

I'm also afraid that white working class racism played a part in both states, subtly encouraged by the Clinton campaign. It was particularly damaging in playing to women (because there's a chance they might still vote for a Democrat in the fall) but it can be damaging in the primary when it plays to men (even though they will not vote for Hillary in November--they will prefer a Republican white man over a white woman or a black man.) Somehow this has to be addressed.

On health care: he needs to again place it in the context of why it is "personal" for him. It's personal for him partly because of his mother, while it's personal for Hillary because she screwed it up the first time. And he needs to again emphasize the open process he advocates to create a health care plan that Congress will pass, and the American people will own.

On the economy: he needs a story that tells why the economic plans he has will work because of his ability to bring people together, and why Hillary's ten point programs won't get passed, because she is too divisive. He's said each of these things separately and consecutively, but he needs a story with real people in it that link the two.

On national security: If you deconstruct Hillary's "3 AM" ad, it appeals to the fears of white women for their children (the only people in the ad are white women and white children), and what are they afraid of? Is it really about the experience to make sound decisions in a crisis? Or is it about white mom protecting her children against threatening dark-skinned men? Think about that possibility when crafting a better response to this line of attack. Because if it was purely a "national security" issue, the ad that the Obama campaign issued the same day should have worked.

These are ideas about adjustments, not on the basics of hope versus fear, working together versus winning at all costs. Obama needs to bring attention back to that distinction, but to do so he probably needs to come at it in a new way that let's us hear it again, and he needs to deal with these distractions while explaining more about what he will do--and how--as President.

That's my two cents, as we used to say, though apparently the Mark Penns of the world get substantially more. And others of us don't even clear that much. Who knows? Maybe this is not even worth the pennies that nobody even bothers to pick up off the floor anymore.