[Pen-l] Obama pressed to address financial anxieties

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, August 17, 2008
Seeing Tougher Race, Allies Ask Obama to Make 'Hope' Specific
By PATRICK HEALY

As Senator Barack Obama prepares to accept the Democratic 
presidential nomination next week, party leaders in battleground 
states say the fight ahead against Senator John McCain looks tougher 
than they imagined, with Mr. Obama vulnerable on multiple fronts 
despite weeks of cross-country and overseas campaigning.

These Democrats ? 15 governors, members of Congress and state party 
leaders ? say Mr. Obama has yet to convert his popularity among many 
Americans into solutions to crucial electoral challenges: showing 
ownership of an issue, like economic stewardship or national 
security; winning over supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton; 
and minimizing his race and experience level as concerns for voters.

Mr. Obama has run for the last 18 months as the candidate of hope. 
Yet party leaders ? while enthusiastic about Mr. Obama and his 
state-by-state campaign operations ? say he must do more to convince 
the many undecided Democrats and independents that he would address 
their financial anxieties rather than run, by and large, as an agent 
of change ? given that change, they note, is not an issue.

"I particularly hope he strengthens his economic message ? even 
Senator Obama can speak more clearly and specifically about the 
kitchen-table, bread-and-butter issues like high energy costs," said 
Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio. "It's fine to tell people about hope and 
change, but you have to have plenty of concrete, pragmatic ideas that 
bring hope and change to life."

Or, in the blunter words of Gov. Phil Bredesen, Democrat of 
Tennessee: "Instead of giving big speeches at big stadiums, he needs 
to give straight-up 10-word answers to people at Wal-Mart about how 
he would improve their lives."

Obama advisers say he has made significant headway defining his 
positions on issues like tougher trade policies, the links between 
new energy sources and job creation and projecting American 
leadership abroad. At the same time, his trip last month to Iraq, 
Afghanistan and Europe helped reassure voters about his experience, 
they said, and his agreement to a roll-call vote on Mrs. Clinton's 
candidacy at the convention should bring her disappointed supporters 
into the fold.

Moreover, the Obama campaign has started running negative 
advertisements against Mr. McCain in battleground states ? often 
without announcing them beforehand. The reason, Obama aides say, is 
to try to convince voters that Mr. McCain is barely different than 
President Bush through a day or two of uncontested advertisements ? 
until the Republicans learn about them and begin to counter the ads.

Yet these advisers also acknowledge that the Obama phenomenon ? the 
candidacy that helped inspire record voter registrations and turnout 
during the primaries ? has come down to earth in a divided, 
economically stressed nation. Even though political analysts say that 
the economic conditions favor the Democrats in this election, and Mr. 
Bush's unpopularity could hurt Republicans, Mr. Obama has not broken 
away from Mr. McCain in polling ? a reflection, in part, of the huge 
numbers of undecided voters across party lines.

"Democrats should take a deep breath and realize that there are a 
group of voters who won't make up their mind about a candidate until 
deep in the fall," said David Plouffe, Mr. Obama's campaign manager. 
"And there are 18 states that are battlegrounds for a reason, and 
they'll be decided by 2 to 4 points. I don't care about national polls."

A New York Times/CBS News poll last month found the race between Mr. 
Obama and Mr. McCain to be a statistical dead heat, not unlike where 
Senator John Kerry and Mr. Bush stood in a Times/CBS News poll in 
July 2004. The poll four years ago was conducted after Mr. Kerry, the 
Democratic nominee, picked Senator John Edwards as his running mate, 
yet before both the party conventions and the most intense period of 
political attacks on Mr. Kerry's war service record as skipper of a 
Swift boat in Vietnam.

The McCain campaign has sought to turn Mr. Obama's celebrity against 
him by portraying the freshman senator as out of his depth in crises 
like Russia's invasion of Georgia. As Mr. Obama was in Hawaii last 
week, Mr. McCain presented himself as a man-at-the-ready, opining 
daily about Russia, as well as repeatedly invoking action verbs like 
"drill" in pledging to address high fuel prices.

To a considerable extent, political analysts say, the closeness of 
the race at this stage reflects the fact that many voters are not 
paying attention to it, after the long, wearying primary season. Many 
Democrats pointed to the election of 1980 when voters, choosing 
between a relatively inexperienced former governor, Ronald Reagan, 
and an unpopular incumbent, Jimmy Carter, finally flocked to Mr. 
Reagan at the end after resolving whatever qualms they had about him.

But some Republicans disputed that analogy, saying the difficulty Mr. 
Obama faces getting traction in public opinion polls reflects the 
country's reservations about this relative newcomer to national 
politics ? both because he has little experience in national security 
but also, inevitably, because of his race.

"I think Senator Obama is a motivational speaker, but at the end of 
the day I don't think that will translate into votes, and certainly 
not the image of strength that Ronald Reagan had," said Jim Greer, 
the chairman of the Florida Republican Party.

"Florida has not yet been locked down by either candidate, or all but 
won by either candidate, but I think Obama's inability to prove his 
experience or prove that he owns a political issue far more than 
McCain is a real problem for him," Mr. Greer said.

In response, several Democrats said that choosing a seasoned party 
leader as his running mate would help Mr. Obama in the fall if he is 
unable to fully allay voters' uncertainty that a one-term senator is 
ready for the presidency.

"The one area he still needs credibility in is experience, and 
picking an Evan Bayh or a Joe Biden as vice president would help a 
lot with that," said John B. Breaux, a former Democratic senator from 
Louisiana. "It wouldn't be bad if he came out early and said who his 
secretary of defense and secretary of state would be ? that would 
address and stabilize the concerns about his experience."

Mr. Obama and his aides made several strategic decisions this summer 
that had clear payoffs, yet also carried some risks that could play 
out in the general election.

He quit the public campaign finance system and built a formidable 
bank account for his campaign, while the Clintons and their 
supporters still smarted from her loss and grew frustrated that he 
did not do more to help pay down her campaign debt. He traveled 
overseas for a week, and was widely praised for his statesmanlike 
bearing, yet Republicans derided him as vainglorious for holding a 
huge rally in Berlin. And while Mr. Obama kept a low profile during 
his Hawaiian vacation, Mr. McCain sought to burnish his image on 
national security by responding to the Georgian crisis.

Some Democrats said Mr. Obama must still demonstrate that he would be 
a more effective president than Mr. McCain, and that he could unite 
the Democratic Party before its convention. Jane Kidd, the party 
leader in Georgia ? where Mr. Obama is hoping black support will help 
him succeed where other northern Democratic nominees have failed ? 
said Mr. Obama had a good deal more work to do to win over Clinton 
supporters as well as white voters who are loath to support a black candidate.

"In rural parts of Georgia and the South, there is still some fear 
about people who look different from themselves," Ms. Kidd said. "And 
there's also healing left to do among women who wanted to see the day 
that a woman was elected president,"

Mr. Bredesen, of Tennessee, said that while the Democrats had little 
chance of carrying his state ? the Obama camp is sending Mr. Bredesen 
to campaign in other states ? Mr. Obama could still take steps to 
appeal to undecided Democrats there that might increase his chances elsewhere.

"I would really like to see him do things in Tennessee that would 
help in other working-class and blue-collar places, like Ohio," Mr. 
Bredesen said. "Job security and health care are huge here. He needs 
to come to the aisle of Home Depot and show them that a Harvard 
graduate ? which I am as well ? knows how to help them."

Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado, the host of next week's Democratic 
National Convention, said Mr. Obama needed to hone and amplify his 
plan to create more jobs if he wants to woo undecided independent 
voters, who make up the largest bloc of the electorate in the swing state.

"His message is the right one, but he needs to turn up the volume and 
sharpen it a bit because these are voters who care a great, great 
deal about the future of the economy," Mr. Ritter said. "He has to 
convince them he is ready for that huge task."

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