With polls now showing that in hard-nosed political terms the early stories about Senator Barack Obama being a political “rock star” perhaps meant a rock star in 2007 who was popular in the 1950s, the Illinois Senator heads into what some analysts now contend is a make-or-break debate.
Can he recapture and transmit that charisma that once brought him to the national forefront in a debate?
Can he, with the power of his arguments, start to derail what is now looking like The Hillary Clinton Express proceeding right on-schedule to the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination?
Can he shake what seems to be underlying an emerging perception — that Obama does remind many of JFK…but not the JFK who got the Democratic nomination in 1960, but the younger JFK who was an exciting, emerging star in 1956 but needed four more years of seasoning until he was totally ready for prime time?
(To find out what happened at the debate see OUR LATER POST HERE.)
Howard Fineman has some fascinating insights — and info — about the Obama campaign and what is at stake:
As Sen. Barack Obama prepared for Tuesday night’s crucial MSNBC debate in Philadelphia, his high command back in Chicago was watching a lot of old Clinton videotape — not of Hillary Clinton, but of Bill, and not of Bill as president, but of Bill as a fresh-faced candidate of 46 (which happens to be Obama’s age) in 1991 and 1992.
“You know, I look at Clinton back then, and I find a lot I agree with,†said David Axelrod, Obama’s media adviser. “He said things Barack is saying now.â€
As the senator from Illinois searches for a way to derail Hillary without ruining his own good-guy image, perhaps the video offers a shrewd approach: arguing that he, not she, is the true disciple of Clinton’s brand of fresh, bring-us-together politics.
If Obama’s campaign starts playing “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow,” watch out…
Fineman says Obama better starting thinking about changing how he presents himself and deal with Clinton…and fast. He offers some debate suggestions worth discussing:
Attack more in sorrow than in anger, with respect for the Clintons’ service — even while saying that this gracefully aging husband-and-wife baby-boomers team is past its prime.
May work. May not. But the fact is older voters seem to be the one who go to the polls. And there are a lot of baby boomers out there. Could backfire.
At the start of the debate, Obama should say that his comments about Hillary are made out of honest disagreement, not any personal animus. “A distinction is not an attack, and he has to make that clear,†said Alan Solomont of Boston, a chief financial backer.
Fair enough. As many people who run blogs know, you can simply disagree on issues without it being personal. This is also Fineman suggesting a political “inoculation” for what Obama may have to say.
It remains curious, however, that in American politics voters know politicians say things for tactical reasons, yet if candidates flap their mouths and say something and then later say or do the opposite somehow uttering words excuses you for what you’ve really done now and may do or say later. So saying it’s all about issues and then proceeding to deconstruct Hillary Clinton could work — given America’s political culture.
He needs to make specific, sharp distinctions on the issues, to the extent that they exist. The fact is, Clinton and Obama are not very far apart on most issues, but Obama needs to highlight the differences in clear language. Iran is a key one.
Perfectly valid and it’s what debates are supposed to be all about.
Argue that Clinton is too polarizing, that she cannot win a general election and that, even if she could, she could not govern effectively in the White House because she simply — perhaps through no fault of her own — is too divisive. In one recent poll, fully 50 percent of voters said that they would never vote for her.
A valid point to raise since the party would be investing a considerable amount of money plus the fates of candidates up for re-election if Ms. Clinton gets the nomination. However, this is not a new issue and the Clinton camp surely has a strong response ready for it. Moreover, if the point becomes an issues and does stick, then watch for some to make the case that Obama could face some election problems of his own (but this would most likely be done by surrogates). GOPers would likely find Obama’s comments about Clinton a Godsend and use snippets of them on talk radio and even TV commercials.
Paint Hillary as someone who became a creature of the Washington moneyed establishment that the Clintons, when they were starting out, railed against. In other words, she became what she beheld.
Again, it’s a valid point. But, once more, Obama better be sure his record is “pure” in his time in Washington and in Illinois or news stories will begin to surface looking at his record of independence from monied interests in the nation’s capital or in his home state.
Offer himself as the real Clintonian outsider and bridge-builder. “Barack has to find a way to define Hillary as business-as-usual and himself as the guy Clinton was 15 years ago,†said one supporter, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his access to the campaign. “It’s less a matter of specific proposals than overall approach. She keeps the country divided, 50-50 in red and blue. Our guy can bring us together. It’s subtle and has to remain subtle.â€
This can be done but it would again rely on (a) Obama showing the same kind of charisma and seeming sincerity that got him all the attention at the 2004 Democratic Convention and (b) proving by his other exchanges in the debate that he is that kind of person. In other words: canned comments written by speech writers or even Obama himself won’t do.
All of this is a tall order and there have been campaign-turning points (where a campaign suddenly ascends or suddenly descends) before …but as noted above even Fineman’s prescription for political health may require some supplementary medicine.
Part of Obama’s selling points will be continuing assertions from the left and right that Hillary Clinton is in reality unelectable. But her backers and others dispute that point — suggesting that the partisan stand-off will be tilted by the independents and that she’s in better shape with them than many other candidates.
So is Obama ready to rock and roll?
If he wants to prevail, he better come across as like a rock star with a big recording contract as opposed to a has-been rock star singing at a bar mitzvah.
UPDATE: Read Dick Polman, who is one of the best analysts anywhere.
Obama truly has a dilemma: he wants to travel the high road as the epitome of a new politics of civil discourse, but there is no way he can win the Democratic nomination unless he descends into the arena with Hillary. He signaled the other day that he thinks maybe he will do so, telling The New York Times that he plans to confront Hillary more forcefully. Yet I viewed that story as a fresh sign of his reluctance. If you’re really going to slug it out with the frontrunner, you simply do it; you don’t launch a trial balloon in the Times, vowing to do it.
The truth is, Obama doesn’t seem to feel comfortable confronting Hillary on camera. The guy by instinct is not a street fighter – Chris Matthews last night called him “a National Public Radio liberal,” and he didn’t intend that as a compliment – yet the simple fact is that, if he ultimately wants the power, he’ll have to fight for it. And that will require him to take on a battle-tested woman who has been in the arena since 1992. Worse yet, he’ll have to fight with enough deftness to attract new followers, rather than alienate those he already has.
Read the entire post. Polman is REQUIRED READING if you’re interested in politics.
This really underscores the nature about how it’s hard to change an established structure. There is political speak, blog-speak, and news-speak. It involved ways of writing and speaking and code words — winks of the eye, omissions, etc. Obama wants to go outside what some consider the fetid American political style of campaigning box. If he wants the nomination, he has to be in the box. Just as newscasters are stuck with a certain tone they need to have when delivering the news — which has no relationship to how people REALLY speak to each other — the news media, politicians and, increasingly bloggers, have their expected tone and style.
UPDATE 2: Obama has run into a political buzz saw due to comments by an associate about the gay community. And it looks like he is facing some political consequences.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.