Three weeks ago I posted “Pursue essential purposes calmly”, suggesting we had a free interval of six weeks to drag the media focus to an examination of the “Obama for President” proposition. I also suggested BO08’s preference would be six weeks of gaffe, scandal and horserace coverage.
For the first half of this interval, BO08 got their druthers. Rev. Wright, the Gore-ing of Hillary, electability, delegate seating, straws in the superdelegate wind, and horserace-horserace-horserace. No attempt to tease out the meanings behind the words in Obama’s beautiful set-piece orations, or what they imply for his prospective conduct as POTUS.
Today’s morning call with Penn, Wolfson and Singer was all horserace. By my notes, question topics in order were electability, Cleaver’s expectations, March fundraising, Corzine’s leaning, dream ticket, polls, early versus late nominations, Jimmy Carter’s leaning, primary versus general election state prospects, Florida seating, electability, and Clinton Foundation donor confidentiality.
Nothing here advances the interest of voters or superdelegates in making informed, intelligent decisions at this critical, consequential, irrevocable fork in the American Road.
Back to essentials. Was my four-point agenda too complicated? Let’s boil it down, then:
What would Barack Obama do for America as President … and how?
When Obama speaks (and in the archives of what he has spoken), examine every word for the light it sheds on this paramount question.
Here’s a starter. The central claim of merit in Barack’s Big Speech is that we must resolve “the complexities of race [OR] we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs“.
HUH?
Faced with this proposition, what questions would responsible voters, responsible delegates, or responsible journalists ask?
- Has America ever made progress in domestic policy in spite of even wider racial divides (as during FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s Great Society)?
- Has some knife-edge transition in social dynamics or legislative complexity hardened today’s reduced racial divide into an impenetrable barrier for constructive health, education or economic policy?
- Of the remaining racial divide, what reduction might Obama achieve … and how? What incremental closure would occur over the same interval in his absence? (He says racial reconciliation is static and stalemated, and implies “none”. Do you buy this?) Alternatively, what closure would have occurred during another Clinton administration?
- Will even Obama’s unique marginal contribution to racial understanding make enough difference to break the hypothetical jobs/health/education logjam … or will we remain dead on the water on all fronts?
This is Obama’s core argument. How many readers and listeners noticed the howling fallacies and false choices bobbing along in this babbling stream of flowing rhetoric? How many can take this seriously, exposed as it is immediately above?
Challenge Obama, head-on, at the strong point of his offense — his words — and the rest of his game plan unravels.
When he says Hillary represents the status quo … what does he mean?
When he says we’re at a defining moment … what is it? Is it real? Ask him to define it.
When he claims he can change Washington by tweaking the rules for lobbyists … how, specifically, is that going to produce the proclaimed effect?
When he tells you regulation was bad, and deregulation was bad, and something else is just right … what is that Goldilocks golden mean?
There’s your campaign agenda. There’s your winning strategy. Listen to what Obama says. Make his claims explicit. Ask yourself what they mean. Demand to know what his proposed remedies are, what they do, and how they work.
Challenge his rhetoric head-on, or resign yourselves to living with the unexamined drumbeat:
OBAMA: Apply directly to the forehead.
OBAMA: Apply directly to the forehead.
OBAMA: Apply directly to the forehead.
. . .
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The Confluence 