In Defense of Obama's Substance

The latest narrative on Obama is 'yea, he's inspiring and all, but is he a hollow candidate?'. The current cover story of The Economist is entitled: 'But could he deliver?: It is time for America to evaluate Obama the potential president, not Obama the phenomenon'. It's also, not coincidentally, the current line of attack from Sen. Clinton.

From a campaign strategy point of view, it's obvious why Clinton is running with this. But the fact that the press is doing the same can largely be chalked up to journalistic laziness. They claim to not know or understand what Obama's positions on the issues are, but it doesn't exactly take an in-depth field investigation to uncover this. To do so, I clicked on his campaign website, clicked on 'Issues', and a submenu of detailed policy positions and proposals appeared... Economy, Education, Energy & Environment, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Homeland Security, Healthcare, Immigration, Poverty, etc. This took me an exhausting 5-10 seconds.

He also has a 64-page Blueprint for Change PDF summary of his positions which can be printed out for reading on the go. I recommend some of these journalists print this out to read on the campaign planes when preparing the latest inane question they will be asking of our candidates.

It is also not true that he does not discuss these issues in his speeches. In Wisconsin just last week, for instance, he gave a detailed speech on the economy. And on his blog last week, Andrew Sullivan reminisced about attending a Obama speech on tax policy, so detailed that Sullivan lamented it was "boring". That attitude is likely why the media does not cover those speeches, though it doesn't explain why they pretend they never took place.

Finally, we get to the cold, hard fact about Democrats and the media... damned if you do, and damned if you don't. The media in 2000 ripped Al Gore apart for running a campaign that was too stuffy and wonky. They found his command of the issues, and his focus on detail and policy, to be boring and lame. They demanded he appear more down-to-earth and human, like that delightfully folksy governor from Texas. This resulted in the Gore campaign putting him in ridiculous situations, like when Gore kissed and pawed his wife at the Democratic Convention that summer. And now, when they have the inspiring, charismatic candidate they demanded of the Democrats eight years ago, they are complaining that... he needs to be more stuffy and wonky.

Lesson learned? Just ignore the media's mumblings, and focus on your strengths. Luckily, since the Bob Shrums of the Democratic party who ran Gore and Kerry's campaigns into the ground aren't represented in the Obama coalition, that lesson may just be learned this year.