‘Obama’s Flaw: The Electorate Doesn’t Understand His Plans’ – From O Globo of Brazil

It’s the question that’s been on almost every political junky’s lips: Why has Obama failed to connect to parts of the electorate his candidacy promises to help the most?

For William Waack, chief international affairs columnist for O Globo of Brazil, his message either has not – or cannot be packaged in a way that those he needs to reach can grasp. In their lack of nuance, Waack implies, Republicans have a decided advantage. He writes in part:

“Obama proposes tax cuts that would benefit more people, but his message hasn’t ‘reached’ the middle class. Obama proposes public works and a federal investment program that harkens back to the time of Roosevelt, but workers that have lost jobs recently due to the emergence of new technologies still haven’t ‘heard’ the message. … The problem here in electoral terms, is that Obama’s detailed and well-formulated proposals don’t have the obvious ideological appeal that, perhaps, must be more easily understandable and acceptable to the electorate he has to win over. Ironically (or tragically, if you wish), what seems like a rationally crafted proposal lacks the easy “appeal” that the Republicans know how to exploit so well.”

By William Waack

Translated By Brandi Miller

August 25, 2008

Brazil – O Globo – Original Article (Portuguese)

For some time, American commentators have been asking Barack Obama to better define himself. Obamania is over (although less so abroad), and what’s left is a Democratic candidate with never-before-seen conditions favorable to defeating a Republican opponent, see his advantages with likely voters rapidly slip away.

Does one thing have anything to do with the other? I won’t risk a hunch here, although I intuitively believe so. But let’s turn to what the American press (not necessarily Republican) laments as the central area of “vagueness” by Obama: the economy.

It is not easy to attack Obama as a “liberal” within the American definition of the word. He simply DOESN’T defend greater intervention by the states, and he does NOT advocate a redistribution of wealth carried out by regulatory bodies and bureaucratic agencies.

But neither is possible to attack him as a Clintonista, concerned about fiscal balance and letting the market correct its problems for itself. In other words, it is NOT possible to say that Obama has decided to favor of those “adept at the market,” the old ideological battle between economists who assisted (Clinton (the debate is important, because Clinton presided over the longest period of uninterrupted economic expansion in recent American history).

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated and English-language foreign press coverage of the conventions and the U.S. election race.