Quote:
Originally Posted by sandgk
I really look forward to your dispassionate outlook on this Steve. As it stands now Obama's message, image and campaign seem very well defined, change, bring the troops home ASAP from Iraq, right the moral, economic and constitutional errors of the last 8 years. If you are seeing it differently, I'd love to know why.
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I'm tired. Wife in DC with Harvard, kid having birthday, lots of teaching. So, I'll ramble on a bit, I hope somewhat coherently.
It's early days in this campaign, but I am very surprised that Obama has been so flat. I expected him to come out after McCain immediately but to "keep his powder dry" on the trust issue until the end. That is, wait and see what he says that is sticking and driving voting in his favor and then show the flip flops. I really think McCain has a real challenge on that one.
But, it's been McCain challenging him to debates, McCain drawing attention away from the issues where Obama is strong and little aggressive marketing the other way. Obama wins strong on ending the war, but last month was the best month so far in the war and elders don't want to leave without a victory, even a shambolic one.
One of the strongest values of older people is the desire to leave a legacy. They see the entry into Iraq as part of an old rubric, a tried and trusted pattern of behavior that won World War II and ended communism. They see it and their role in it very simplistically and ignore those pesky problems like Vietnam in between. In terms of jobs and growth and negotiation, I think that they are more likely to see the world as a zero sum game. Jobs going to India are one less job in America instead of outsourcing an uncompetitive part of the firm in order to save the remaining jobs and the brand. They do not understand the unfolding world economy or have the risk seeking attitudes to grab the entrpreneurial nettle.
Attitudes toward risk and the desire for yesterday is strong in people over 60. Even at my age, every now and then, I just want to get on a plane, fly to Columbus, get in a car and drive to a farm deep in Morgan County or somewhere in the Hocking River valley and just turn off the damn news for six months. I just want to walk into a field on some farm, in between southern Ohio hills, and just hear silence. Real silence. I want to turn all this crap off. I don't want to hear about one more bloody suicide bomber, one more case of child abuse, one more anything. It's unrealistic, it doesn't happen often, but I feel it for the first time in my life.
Remembering the Carter presidency, as most over 50s do (and that is half of the electorate), I think that "Carter second term" handle just might be a bigger problem than Obama's campaign might think. Carter also was cerebral. He was perhaps the best educated American president ever and yet managed to be every bit as ineffective as our first Harvard MBA. And he was cold and distant from the electorate.
There are many differences between Carter and Obama and they fall in favor of Obama. Carter meddled in everything and got stuck into details that he should have allowed others to sort out. Talking in that era meant weakness and he emboldened the Iranians and others.
And that is where I think McCain is going. That is how he will paint Obama. Obama needs to visit Iraq, to get out of the US, to be seen to be strong on foreign knowledge and to have contacts there. He needs a bit of "can do" that we aren't seeing. He needs much more personal contact with working class whites. He needs to throw that beer back in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Louisville and to speak on bread and butter working class issues.
Right now, what we see from here is that McCain is the one on the offensive. I suspect that Obama is waiting to be nominated before defining himself against. The question in my mind is, will McCain have typecast him already with that demographic by the time he gets there and will Obama have learned what he needs to say to convince working class whites that he is their man.
I really hope that we get a chance to see the first debate. In my mind, Obama wins or loses it right there with that demographic. If he comes off like Reagan, McCain is on a hiding to nothing I think.
So, I haven't made up my mind about anything, but I am beginning to see the potential of something that favors McCain, especially if Iraq comes right.