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It's Time for Obama to Get Tough
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How is it that despite adulatory media coverage, long lines of volunteers at his campaign offices, and Americans deeply unhappy about the direction of the country, Barack Obama is rapidly losing support -- and control of the agenda -- to John McCain?
It's because Obama has reverted to the whiny, wimpy style that nearly allowed Hillary Clinton to wipe him out in September, 2007 -- until he found his backbone and actually started to stand up for himself.
When McCain launches volley after volley of attack on Obama's policies (with photos of Paris and Brittany thrown in to get the media's attention), what's Obama's response? To ride in on his My Little Pony and cry because McCain is -- how low! -- criticizing his policies and questioning his capacity to lead in a mildly creative way.
This self-righteous simpering might make Obama supporters feel like he's "changing the tone" of politics, but it's not doing anything to stop his slide, shape the debate, or answer the legitimate question the McCain campaign keeps asking: Is Obama actually ready to lead?
So far, Obama's response is to give McCain's advisers exactly what they want: McCain attacks, Obama complains about the attacks and then capitulates on everything from illegal wiretapping to offshore oil drilling. Obama is once again caught up in the great Democratic myth that voters make up their minds by carefully calibrating which candidate's issue positions are closest to his own (a major topic of my book, Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party).
Newsflash, Obama: To most voters, campaigns are not an egghead mental Olympics between two walking policy platforms. They're primal battles that test how candidates respond under fire. And for the last several weeks, Obama has been failing that test: crying about McCain's attacks and then surrendering. To most voters, this sends a simple message: if Obama can't stand up to a babbling incompetent like John McCain, how is he ever going to stand up to the oil executives, the health care lobby, or, for that matter, Osama bin Laden?
Of course, it's not as if McCain is passing this trial by fire with flying colors. When he gets criticized, he tends to respond with incoherent ramblings unhinged from either reality or his own past statements. But that's not getting noticed because McCain isn't facing much fire -- all he's facing is Obama's whining.
The good news is that we've been here before, and Obama has shown a capacity to emerge from his fetal crouch, stop spewing only rhetorical rainbows and daisies, and start throwing some lethal punches of his own. In the summer of 2007, Obama was riding all his inspiring hopes and dreams to...a 23 point deficit in the national polls. After being encouraged by Arianna Huffington, Isaiah Wilner and others to "start running for President of the United States instead of class president," he did just that and launched some effective, hard-hitting attacks on Hillary's voting record and her ties to corporate lobbyists. It was the critical moment of the 2007 campaign when Obama effectively upended Hillary's inevitability narrative and regained momentum.
See more stories tagged with: obama, election08, mccain, presidential campaigns
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