Obama... Getcha Head in the Game!

Kellen posted some links about the election on his LJ and asked for my opinion on them (the links were this and that). He wrote: "Obama needs to create a more firm stance on issues and state point blank why McCain is horrendous and why he is not. The American public needs to hear things as plain as you can make them and there are lots of facts about McCain that we just aren't getting from the general broadcast media."

I replied thusly....

I think that first link is a good website, but I wish it was less focused on background crap (ancestry, bio facts) and more on explaining the vast differences between the two on the key issues... the economy, health-care, the war, etc. Focusing too much on Obama's ancestry plays up this meme the GOP is pushing that Obama is foreign and different and weird and unamerican. I think that's bullshit (Obama's unique background is a plus to me), but the average voter really gets worked up over that bullshit.

Take a lot at McCain's anti-Obama ads-- not just the Paris Hilton one-- and you will see they focus very little on actual issues and are more geared toward personality stuff... making voters see Obama as foreign or as an elite snob (the latter being the tactic the GOP used to destroy Gore and Kerry). Obama, on the other hand, is focusing his ads on McCain's support of Bush and conservative policies. It's no surprise-- given voters' love of BS non-issues-- that Obama's lead in polls is shrinking.

And that is why I completely agree with the second link... Obama needs to get his head back in the fucking game. He totally kicked Hillary's ass because he stayed focus and ran a solid campaign with a clear message. And Hillary was a much tougher opponent than McCain (in my opinion), so Obama should be winning by a landslide here. He's not because he's gotten lazy and sloppy.

He's let his message get diluted because he's spending too much time on defense and trying to appeal to 'centrist' BS issues that voters don't care about anyway (for instance, Obama should never have even given the GOP an inch on the offshore drilling/oil issue, but he's already given them a foot).

The time for playing nice with McCain is over. McCain and the GOP are playing dirty... and it's time to stop allowing them any accommodation or respect. The message should be clear... the GOP and Bush and McCain were running the country for the last 8 years. They are now pretending like they weren't, but they were. Things are real shitty now. End of story.

Ronald Reagan won by a landslide by asking voters a simple question: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?". BAM. There's Obama's message. And every speech and press conference he gives should be geared toward a) reinforcing that, and b) reminding people that McCain and the GOP are responsible for this mess. Every time some book comes out insisting Obama is a marxist Muslim moonbat or every time the GOP says Obama wants to raise taxes and make gas expensive because he hates America, Obama needs to hold a press conference at some closed-up factory somewhere in middle America, and say "The GOP did this. End of story."

PS- As for foreign policy, Obama should be reinforcing how weak and pathetic the Bush/McCain policies have made us. Iraq is still a mess and even the GOP isn't pretending we can/should stay there forever (basically they've tiptoed back to closer to where Democrats have been). The GOP has also now adopted the longtime Democratic policy on fixing Afghanistan. Etc. All while insisting that listening to Democrats/liberals on foreign policy will result in armageddon.

And now we see Russia casually invading Georgia (though the latter isn't 100% innocent here either) because they knew President Bush was off slapping girls' asses in China and is generally an impotent buffoon with an incoherent worldview (ie. McCain-- Mr. Bomb-Bomb-Bomb-Iran himself-- stating with no sense of irony that ""In the twenty-first century, nations don't invade other nations"). The world sees us weaker than they have in a very long time, and it's not just because our currency is in the toilet. Obama needs to nail this home too.

If he thinks he can coast until November, well he should ask President Kerry how well that works.