Yes We Can: A Letter To My Unborn Child

To my unborn child:

As you read this, the story of President Obama is indelibly inked into the nation's biography. The audacity of Obama is as much a part of the American story as the honesty of Lincoln, the courage of Washington, the vision of FDR. The phrase "Yes We Can" is as ingrained in our lore as "four score and seven years ago" or "we have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Three words. So simple you may miss their importance. But at the time he first spoke them, they were nothing short of revolutionary.

When President Obama was still a young and exotic candidate, he got beaten pretty badly in a primary race by a powerful opponent. Some people were shocked. Some said it proved the doubters right. Many predicted he would never recover. But he was undaunted. And on a frozen New Hampshire night, he looked into the eyes of America and said "Yes We Can."

With those three words, this man we barely knew, who looked different and had a name we couldn't pronounce, touched the very core of what it means to be American. America responded because those three words are in our DNA, and watching this man speak, we had no doubt that it was true: Yes We Can.

President Obama was born at a time when many African Americans were still unable to vote. He was raised without his father, and at times there wasn't enough money for food. Many mornings, when he lived overseas, he had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to study, just to keep up with American children his age.

He succeeded by being fearless and focused, graceful and true to himself. As a community organizer, Harvard lawyer, Constitutional scholar and state and federal senator, Barack Obama followed his heart. He worked for others. His vocation always followed his passion.

When he ran for president, Barack Obama was advised to wait. It was not his turn. He was inexperienced. He couldn't handle it. Then, when he became successful, he was attacked from every angle - some said he was "too black." Others said he was "too white." Some feared he was too conciliatory to those who disagreed with him; others accused him of being too partisan. Finally, people resorted to spreading lies and calling him every name in the book. But Barack Obama was calm, confident and clear about his purpose. He never got distracted, he never rushed, he was never guided by anything other than his own moral compass.

Like President Obama, you too will be judged unfairly. You will be embraced by some and rejected by others based on the color of your skin, the way you speak, or the clothes you wear. You may be labeled too young, too old, too short or tall or simply misguided. Some people may even try to dictate how you worship or whom you love. You will lose before you win.

And when you encounter those doubts, setbacks, even ridicule, you will understand the power of those three words.

Yes We Can means you will never be denied opportunity. Nothing will be out of reach. Yes We Can means you are not alone in your journey. If you listen to others, you will achieve more together than separately. Yes We Can means audacity and ingenuity beat inertia and trepidation every time.

Yes We Can prompted your great grandparents to risk everything and come to this country, weather the Great Depression, and prosper when the odds were against them. Yes We Can enabled both your grandfathers to face down death in a foreign war even as many in their homeland had disowned them. They never accepted failure as an option, they never stopped loving their country, and they never stopped believing in those three words. Yes We Can belongs to you because you've inherited it from all who came before you. You are the soldier, the businessman, the farmer, the teacher, the explorer. You are an American.

Americans dream big, follow-through, solve problems, and never quit. Americans are not always right, but we are resilient - we can change. Americans have a plurality of beliefs, but we hold these three words in common: Yes We Can.

As of this writing, your mother and I haven't met you yet - we haven't seen the color of your eyes or smelled your baby skin or heard your laugh - but we know you. And we know that every question has just one answer: Yes We Can.

Why Sarah Palin Will Not Be The GOP Nominee In 2012

Epitaphs are being written. Next steps considered. Late October is beginning to look a lot like late May did in the Democratic primary, when everyone knew the race was over except the candidate facing Barack Obama. Then, it was Hillary Clinton. This time, John McCain and Sarah Palin.

GOP partisans and pundits alike are turning to the new big question: WWSPD? On Thursday, Marc Ambinder posted "Palin 2012: The Argument." He laid out a valid and compelling case for why Sarah Palin will be the candidate to beat in the Republican primary, come 2012. I'd like to consider the opposite argument: Why Sarah Palin Won't Be the Nominee In 2012.

Decline of the Culture War
If we do, as it appears we will, slip into a bona fide Depression, it's unlikely we'll dig ourselves out in just four years - in which case, economic issues will again trump a manufactured culture war in 2012. The Evangelical community will be split between Huckabee and Palin, and post mortems of the '08 campaign are unlikely to sit well with Republicans, who aren't fond of victims in the same way Democrats are.

With the new Congress, a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage will be a practical impossibility, and the issue will have settled onto states' shoulders. Several more states will have voted to allow it, and a handful will criminalize it. Either way, it will have a greatly reduced impact on national politics. And with a Democratic administration that is actively inclusive of the faith-based community, many churches will cease to be hotbeds of GOP organizing.

The Republicans are more likely to launch their attacks from the fiscal right, lining up behind Mitt Romney or the one man who has waged a successful revolt against a popular Democratic president: Newt Gingrich. A solid and unwavering fiscal conservative with a winning record and some experience reaching across the aisle (after leaving Congress).

A Maverick at the Party
In 2012, Sarah Palin will be in the unenviable position of rallying party loyalists from the standpoint of a "Maverick." When McCain faced the same crossroads this election cycle, he opted to toe the party line. Palin's own values and mores are much more in line with the party base than McCain's, so she shouldn't have so hard a time. But something's got to give, and in an election cycle when Republicans are challengers, rather than incumbents, a centrist appeal will be crucial to winning the general election.

If Sarah Palin finds herself in a primary battle against Newt Gingrich, a straight-talking, unflappable institution of the Republican party, she'll be forced into more "Maverick" grandstanding - a role she savors, but which doesn't give the gravitas she'll need to make her case to the general public.

Dr. Frankenstein's Moment of Recognition
The party that unleashed Sarah Palin on the world seems to have recognized that its monster is, indeed, alive - and many Republicans are stepping back slowly. She's already lost the support of conservative elites from the Wall Street Journal to the National Review and over the next four years, she may find herself hung out to dry, without the enduring support of a party that worked so hard to apply lipstick to whatever animal this candidacy was. As she finishes out her gubernatorial term without the benefit of McCain's cadre of lawyers, will she encounter more abuse-of-power trouble? As the press and the party has more time to vet her, will the unsavory (and patently unAmerican - sorry, Sarah, to use your word) activities of the AIP come back to haunt her?

The trick for the GOP in 2012 will be finding a way to harness the genie's magic while quietly placing the genie back in the bottle from whence she came.

Republican Mob Puts the GOP Brand in Jeopardy

(This was originally post at Huffington Post)

A lot of ink has been shed this election cycle on the topic of "rebuilding the Republican brand." Indeed, the Grand Old Party finds itself at a most dire juncture. On one side it has an incumbent leader with historically low approval ratings who is losing mounting court cases on the philosophy of national security he put in place and who is battling multiple catastrophes that fundamentally undermine the Republican philosophy of governance and economics. On the other side the party is fielding a presidential candidate whose main appeal has been his refusal to toe the party line and a vice presidential candidate who caters to one constituency of the party and is mostly unappealing to the rest. The GOP, three weeks from the presidential election, is in the throes of a wrenching identity crisis.

As a brand marketer, I spend my time crafting strategy and messages that enable brands to connect with consumers in a meaningful way. Cohesion, consistency and lifestyle appeal are crucial. In short, you want consumers to see your product and say "I know that brand, and it's the brand for people like me."

Warriors vs. Thinkers
In the past, Republicans have been successful at defining themselves in that light, using wedge issues to illuminate and exaggerate the difference between demographics, ultimately concluding "Republicans are people like me." We all remember Karl Rove's three winning Gs: God, guns and gays. With a vast, coordinated effort in 2000 and 2004, Republicans introduced state-level ballot initiatives that dovetailed with their national strategy of painting their opponents as "extreme" and "different" -- and therefore unacceptable.

But in 2008, something has broken down for Republicans, and there's more to blame than just a stacked deck. The GOP has a new face, and it's not the face of Sarah Palin. It is the face of anger, hatred and violence, and it threatens to eat away the Republican Party from the inside.

Led by war hero McCain and bellicose strategist Steve Schmidt in its battle to defeat a former president of the Harvard Law Review, the Republicans have divided the nation into "warriors" and "thinkers." Schmidt is a Rove protege who shares his mentor's love of underhanded tactics but none of his subtlety. Schmidt's strategy: boil Rove's signature wedge attack down to its most basic level, "otherness," and wage a campaign on this topic alone. This means painting Senator Obama as "elite" or "exotic" -- code words for "different" which, when applied to an ethnic minority, add up to clear race-baiting.

A New Republican Voice
On some fronts, his efforts have seen short-term success. Schmidt's insistence on the unorthodox (read: mavericky) choice of running mate Sarah Palin energized the base in a way that John McCain alone (or McCain's preferred pick of pro-choice Democratic exile Joe Lieberman) never could have. And recently, as the campaign reverted to character attacks, this newly energized base has taken their passion to a new and scary level.

In just the past week, Republicans at McCain and Palin speeches have shouted epithets, threatened violence and directed racial slurs at those in attendance -- and the news media has taken note. With the race heating up and policy debate taking a backseat to negative campaigning, this type of vitriol is becoming the main story in itself.

As McCain and Palin do nothing to tamp down the bloodlust among their supporters, they tacitly facilitate the rise of a new Republican voice. An angry, insular, xenophobic voice. And in so doing, the Republican Party, already facing an identity crisis, is defining itself anew for the next generation of voters.

The New "Others"
The American people are not, by and large, racists. We are a reasonable people who excel when the chips are down. We have been given to mob mentality and flights of fancy at times in our history, but what has made the country a superpower is its people. In 1968, when Robert F. Kennedy declared, shortly before his death, that the United States would elect an African-American president "in the next 40 years," this was a statement of his firm confidence, not that African-Americans were "worthy," but that American voters were wise. He believed in the ability of the American public to make decisions based on rationale and decency.

And in that sense, those who would advocate violence ("kill him!" - Florida, "off with his head!" - Pennsylvania), or make ridiculous, wild-eyed accusations ("terrorist!" - Pennsylvania) or hurl epithets at a professional doing his job ("sit down, boy!" - Florida) -- they are the ones who are "not like us."

At a time when a generation of new voters is swept up in a tide of support for Barack Obama, the GOP faces a bleak choice. Continuing this spiral away from decency into violent xenophobia; that is, toward extremism and away from the fundamental tenets of love and unselfishness that tie all religious traditions together. The party, with Schmidt at the tiller, is risking permanent damage to the Republican brand.

BREAKING NEWS

BREAKING NEWS: Sources indicate that Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein. The name, which runs in the Obama family, is also the name of former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Many prominent pundits and political analysts have faulted Senator Obama for his middle name, pointing out that his decision to be named Barack Hussein Obama is an undeniable indicator of his terrorist sympathy.

Barack Obama spent a portion of his childhood in Indonesia, where his middle name helped him feel at home among the nation’s 200 million Muslims.

"I remember playing with Barack when we were nine years old," says Buana Bati, a childhood friend. “All the older boys held their sticks like they were guns and would scream 'death to America!' We weren’t quite sure what they meant by that, but Barack was never bashful. He stepped forward and said 'my middle name is Hussein!' He was immediately accepted in their group."

Upon returning to the United States and later matriculating at Columbia University in New York City, Barack Obama kept his middle name a secret. "I was determined not to let them know my true identity," Obama wrote in his memoir, Dreams From My Father. "Once they heard me utter the name Hussein, I knew my secret would be out." Casual students of the Arabic language may know Hussein to be a common, secular name that means "small, handsome one;" but to Al Qaeda operatives and old jihad hands, any utterance of "Hussein"” is no less than a battle cry.

"In Kandahar, where I grew up, there is a saying," said Nuri Al-Sadr, a recent immigrant to Dearborn, MI; "when Hussein inhabits the White House, the blood of the infidels will run in the streets like water." Mr. Al-Sadr, looking over his shoulder, then added, "of course, no one from my family has said this."

As the general public learns the truth about Senator Obama’s middle name, the reaction has been mixed. Many fervent supporters of Obama’s are unfazed. One such supporter, 21 year-old Kathy Rowlands from San Jose, CA, says "I just know he’s the One. And the Bible tells us that, when the Messiah returns, we may not know him. He may look like Jesus, he may look like Moses. I guess this proves that the Messiah is returning as Mohammed."

Others are less forgiving. Steven Williamson, a pipefitter, life-long Democrat and staunch Hillary Clinton supporter from Philadelphia, PA, shook his head from side to side while wiping a solitary tear from his eye. "I knew it," he said. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. From the first time I saw him, debating Hillary Clinton in South Carolina, I said to my wife, I said 'that man right there is a terrorist. And he’s going to bring down our country, sure as I’m sitting here.' Well, I hate to say I told you so."

Obama's Keys To Winning Tonight's Town Hall Debate

With one presidential and one vice presidential debate behind us, a pattern is emerging: each time, the Democratic candidate has come to the table armed with facts and policy proposals, while the Republican catered to pundits and the public with an amalgam of attitude and atmospherics, colloquialisms and avoidance-by-way-of-personal-anecdote.

And in tomorrow's town hall meeting in Nashville, John McCain will be on his home turf. McCain's been described as the "master of the town hall," and Nashville may present his last, best hope of wresting the momentum from Barack Obama. Rest assured, he'll be in fighting form.

Obama, who has been criticized by opponents for being "aloof" and "professorial," may have his work cut out for him. But his laid-back, unflappable demeanor and his down-to-earth lifestyle create an excellent opportunity to connect with the voters in the room and those watching on television. Here's what he needs to do to capitalize:

• Keep it short. Like Al Gore and John Kerry, Barack Obama is a victim of the Progressive's love of policy nuance. The Harvard lawyer may love building and presenting a case, but he'll be speaking to "ordinary Americans" - likely white, working class, and skewing older. He'll need to keep his responses short, pithy and punchy. This is no secret, and he's pulled it off plenty of times, so there's no need to worry; but he'll have to keep it in mind the whole time. Even one belabored answer risks losing the audience for good.
• Make eye contact. And not just with those in the room. Obama should split his time between speaking to the crowd and directly to the camera. In the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday, we all witnessed the contrast between Sarah Palin's eyes staring through the screen and Joe Biden's, cast downward as he addressed moderator Gwen Ifill. Obama will be wise to remember that the people he needs to win over are on the other side of the camera.
• Get a move on. We've all seen Obama in town hall meetings, half-sitting, allowing his comfort with the constituents to create a relaxed, personal atmosphere. Even seated, his presence still commands attention. But this doesn't translate as well on camera. By contrast, John McCain is a mover. He prowls the stage, cracking jokes and addressing his "friends." In the context of the emerging campaign narrative, this contrast can serve Obama well - Obama the cool hand versus the jumpy and erratic McCain - but he must be careful not to cede control of the room. Obama has an advantage standing next to the shorter, stooped McCain, and as he walks with his languid stride, even stepping into the audience to connect with questioners, he can remain the singular focus for the entire 90 minutes.
• Yes, words matter. Obama often uses clinical language, referring to "the middle class." In more populist moments, he opts for "folks." But in informal town halls, he must go a step further, into the second person. I'd like to see him directly address a questioner, or even the television audience, with "you." I'd like to see him ask a follow-up question of those in the audience, put full names to anecdotal characters, even tell stories that extend beyond the campaign trail, into his personal life. The majority of undecided voters are not bigots or cynics - they're just waiting for him to invite them in.

Obama has every advantage a candidate could ask for, and Tuesday night may be his opportunity, not just to extend his lead in the polls, but to upset the undisputed champion of the town hall meeting.

[Cross-post from HuffingtonPost.]

Voting Democratic for the First Time in 50 Years - Profile of an Obamacan

Jo Anne Morse is a 67 year-old retired schoolteacher from Florida who, in nearly 50 years of voting, has never voted for a Democrat. In the interest of full disclosure, she is also the author’s mother.

In 1968, as a military wife with a toddler son and a husband overseas, she voted for Richard Nixon. In 1984, she scoffed at Geraldine Ferraro’s groundbreaking candidacy and voted for Reagan’s second term. Even in 2004, amid an unpopular war and darkening economic skies, she never gave a second thought to supporting George W. Bush’s second term.

So why the sudden change of heart? Simple, she says. She looked around her and realized that, in the words of Barack Obama himself, the stakes were just too high to do the same thing and pray for different results.

The following is a brief interview conducted last week.

You’ve been voting for 50 years. Have you voted Republican in every election?
I have, yeah. All my life, growing up, my parents were always Republicans and I thought that was the thing to do – and here I am, 50 years later! I made my decision differently this year.
Why did you decide to switch this year?

I started listening to what he said, and I was always impressed with the way he ran his campaign. He had people all excited about him – he talked about what they should do and they could do, and it was very exciting to see people thrilled about his candidacy.

I feel like he encourages people to do something – to be more than they are. I think he’s trying to get them up.

The Republicans have said so much in the campaign – that he’s such a liberal senator, and he’s just so left. But I keep thinking to myself, I don’t think he is.

They say “you don’t know somebody till they’re in office, he may raise your taxes,” but I don’t see that.

Are you concerned that he’ll raise your taxes?
Well, he says that he’ll give tax breaks to 95% of the middle class. So I’m not concerned that he will.

Do you feel like we can trust him to do what he says he will do?
Yes, I feel like we can trust him. Once he gets into office, I know he’ll have a lot of people around him pulling him one way or the other. But I feel like he’s a good person and an honest person, and I trust his judgment to do the right thing.

Does Obama address the issues that are important to you in this election?
I think he does.

Do you feel like he understands what’s important to people?
I think he does. He comes from working with the people in Chicago, trying to help them, and I think he’s in touch with people’s needs. We don’t all have the same needs, but I think he wants to help people and get them going.

I decided to vote for him because he has an understanding of what people are going through, and he can find answers for that. I just had a feeling of trusting him and believing that he could do it.

Is he able to find solutions to those problems and bring them about?
He is. He’s obviously a pretty smart guy, and once he gets into office, I think he could find an answer or find a way to an answer for whatever needs to be dealt with.

I’ve sat here watching him on the campaign and – I guess when I think about it, I’m surprised that I’ve gone Democratic, but I feel like he can be trusted. And I believe what he has to say about the war.

You like Obama’s position on the war?
Yeah, to get out. There’s so much on the other side [Republicans’ Iraq positions] that I used to think. But it’s so ridiculous, how long it’s gone on and how many bad things are happening. A lot of people have been lost, and all the money they’ve spent to get this thing right. And maybe now that the violence is down, maybe…

I just thought, well, maybe Obama has the answers. Everybody seems to have come to that point [phased withdrawal] by now – except McCain. I don’t know that McCain is right, either.

What other issues in this election are important to you?
Well, I’m concerned about all the talk of climate change. I think that’s got to be dealt with one way or the other. And I think if we could bring people home from the war, then we could get settled to take care of things here in the US. And I think that’s what we need to do right now.

Jo Anne used to joke that she couldn’t figure out how she and her husband – both socially conservative, fiscally conservative and politically conservative – had raised two liberal sons. Her youngest (yours truly) would respond “you taught us to have an open mind, to care for the neediest among us and to consider the options carefully.” This year, she took her own advice.

About those "Fundamentals"

On Monday, amid one of the most significant and far-reaching financial breakdowns in half a century, John McCain declared, again, that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong." And the Obama campaign jumped on him like he had said "death to America." The gleeful way the Obama campaign reacted made it clear they believe they’ve got their Ace in the hole.

But as any poker player will tell you, an Ace does not a winning hand make. It’s part of a winning hand, but the other cards must fall into place as well.

Ever the Warrior
It’s no secret that McCain is weak on the economy and out of touch with the needs of the average American. But the "strong fundamentals" line wasn’t born of naïveté. It was the result of an old political instinct, something drilled into him since his days in the Naval Academy: project strength.

We know that John McCain’s world view (what Sarah Palin might call the “McCain Doctrine”) revolves around his military background, and his comment on the economy was no different from a statement on an advancing enemy: "We’re strong. We’re prepared. We will win."

McCain sensed that the American people, in a time of crisis and with no incumbent in the election, might be more interested in finding solace than in placing blame. And being reassured by a three-decade Washington veteran that "the fundamentals of our economy are still strong" can go a long way toward placating certain voters.

The Change We Need
Meanwhile, Obama has been hammering him for said out-of-touchness. With the $520 loafers, the multiple homes and the images of McCain golf carting with Bush 41, this label has a good chance of sticking. And if Obama can seize this opportunity, he’s got the election in hand.

But he won’t win this issue by arguing a negative. To establish himself as a leader with Presidential mettle, he’s got to offer the American people – in simple, specific and no uncertain terms – "change we can believe in." Bold leadership on this issue will not only score him an electoral victory, it will cement him as the type of "out-of-the-wilderness" savior many of his supporters believe him to be. A press conference, a bold plan and a groundswell of support among economists and pundits will be his domestic version of the Brandenburg Gate.

Obama mustn’t allow this to turn into a war of which candidate is less out of touch. Obama has gained some ground with his attacks on McCain’s gaffes. Now he needs to pivot toward the positive – toward the future. And in so doing, he’ll find that his winning hand includes a pair of Aces.

Sarah Palin: Twice As Scary

Sarah Palin scares me.  Twice.  She scares me as a Democrat and she scares me as an American.

The Democrat in me is a little spooked that this brainstorm of McCain’s is so crazy it just might work.  She has a compelling story, a spunky* charisma that makes you want to root for her, and she has strong conservative bona fides.  And lots of hair.  In short, she’s everything McCain is not.

Choosing Sarah Palin was a shameless pander on McCain’s part.  A clear signal to anyone who would listen that his is a dangerously flawed candidacy that cannot survive without a shot in the arm.  And she just may be the right shot.  (They say she has a mean 3-pointer, after all.)

Between the two of them, they are insulated from nearly any criticism – the POW card, the woman card, the infant baby with Down’s, the son heading to Iraq.  And she and her husband are sure to make the NASCAR circuit swoon.

On the other hand, Sarah Palin scares me as an American.  On the off-chance that they do win, and she does become the Vice President of the United States,  she is so underqualified, so unschooled in political thought or maneuvering on a national scale – nevermind the global stage – that she would be a disaster.  Her statement a few short months ago that “I wish someone could explain to me just what the VP does” is perfect proof of that.

Take that and put it in the context of the oldest person ever to run for a first term of the presidency – a cancer survivor with unanswered questions about his health.   Suddenly the choice to put this 44 year old with 20 months of executive experience – the mother of a special needs 4 month-old – one heartbeat away from the presidency is simply negligent.

On Friday, she stood next to a man who is older than the state she governs and spoke to a crowd larger than the entire town she was presided over as mayor and introduced herself to the world.  She did a fine job, getting by on pluck and earnest brow-furrowing – which I suspect is her general MO.

But the last three VPs have taught us something.  Dan Quayle made it painfully, comically clear that good intentions and sit-com facial expressions do not constitute vice presidential mettle.  Al Gore came along to redefine the role of vice president as ax-to-the-grindstone policy wonk and true executive partner.  Then came Dick Cheney, who elevated vice presidential power to unprecedented and dangerous heights.

On the heels of Cheney comes Sarah Palin – Quayle without the chops or the gravitas – and threatens to plunge us back decades.  Which, given the Cold War imaginings of her new boss, probably makes her a pretty good running mate after all.

 

*  On a side note: I’m currently taking bets on which male television pundit will first describe her as “spunky,” and what kind of gender card hell will rain down on him when he does…

McCain To Women: Gullible Is Not In The Dictionary

At noon ET today, John McCain announced his choice for vice presidential candidate: Alaska governor Sarah Palin. And with that pick, the 72 year-old Senator sent a clear message to female voters: I think you’re idiots.

The man known for his public use of the C- word and his conspiratorial laugh when Hillary Clinton, his distinguished Senate colleague, was described as a “bitch” has grown convinced that he can win her voters. He’s spent the past two weeks trying to drive a wedge between Hillary’s female supporters and Obama with triangulation and passive-aggressive, disingenuous messaging.

He's made his strategy no secret. McCain clearly believes that women will vote for other women simply because they’re women. His choice of a pro-life creationist who is dead set on drilling in her own beautiful back yard is proof of that fact. By taking a staunch anti-choice stand, Sarah Palin virtually betrays the interests and longstanding struggles of American women – much the way her position on ANWR drilling betrays and endangers the well-being of her home state.

And John McCain’s statement of his intent to nominate conservative activist judges with the goal of overturning Roe v. Wade is further anathema to women’s rights over their own bodies. But women are gullible, he believes. They'll vote their kind, because they go with heart over head. Emotion over reasons.

Sen. McCain clearly believes that women will vote for him in November – against their own best interests – simply because he tapped a woman to be his vice presidential candidate. A choice that would put a severely unqualified, uninformed person a heartbeat away from The Button – weakening American standing and putting our national interests at risk.

But, according to John McCain, women aren’t concerned with that kind of detail. That’s man stuff.

Palin: Is Her Weakness Her Greatest Strength?

It's Sarah Palin. That sound you hear is thousands of reporters and oppo researchers tapping away at Google and shuffling through papers, trying to figure out what this beauty queen-cum-local pol is all about. There’s the state trooper flap. And the dangerous Stevens endorsement (gotta be worse than Rezko, right? Right??). And there’s the fact that she’s a complete greenhorn, utterly unfit to be a heartbeat (a 72 year-old cancer survivor’s heartbeat) away from the presidency.

But that last point, clearly the most important, valid reason to discount her candidacy, could prove to be a valuable asset. For one thing, the experience issue is utterly off the table for the Obama campaign this election. As convinced as Obama may be that his judgment and life experience qualify him to be president, he knows that it’s a losing topic for him. He has plenty of angles from which to attack McCain / Palin, but experience isn’t one of them. The trick for the Obama campaign all along has been to find ways to keep the word “experience” out of the national dialogue.

Fine, so they don’t have to say it. They can show it. After all, isn’t that what all writers are taught: show, don’t tell? About an hour ago, most Democrats’ mouths began watering and they circled Oct. 2 – the date of the Vice Presidential debates – on their calendars. After all, it’s a widely accepted fact that Biden will tear just about any challenger apart in a one-on-one debate. The man’s head is chock full of national security knowledge and his voting record a veritable Congressional history lesson, and he has a direct, candid, hard-hitting style that is borderline relentless.

There’s no question that Biden would win against Sarah Palin, but there’s a very real possibility that he won’t prevail against Palin. Thinking back to the Gore / Bush and Kerry / Bush debates, Bush was uninformed, a poor orator and generally dismantled by both Gore and Kerry. The vast majority of pundits and commentators had Bush losing those debates. But with each failure of a debate, Bush’s poll numbers rose. Republicans painted Democrats as arrogant and condescending. And, truthfully, it’d be damn hard not to condescend to George Bush.

Biden will have an exceptionally difficult time coming out of a debate with Sarah Palin without seeming condescending or preachy. For every verbal smack-down Biden issues, the GOP will issue statements that Biden was overbearing, cocky or “mean.” I can see it now – and it stands a very good chance of working. People’s hearts will go out to the “poor lady” who is getting schooled on national television by an aggressive older man. The Republicans will release YouTube videos using “Papa Don’t Preach” as a soundtrack. They will do everything they can to hold up her shortcomings as strengths, the same way they did with George W. Bush.

It’s a risky pick, to be sure – and it’s a gamble that the American people, having been fooled twice, will be rubes yet again. If there’s anything we love, it’s narratives about underdogs, come-from-nowhere triumphs, and young, charismatic beauty queens. I still believe that Jan 20, 2009 will inaugurate a President Obama, but the McCain campaign just laid down some tacks and maybe an oil slick on the raceway.

Hothead McCain

Over on TalkingPointsMemo, David Kurtz brings up the Obama camp's new line of attack branding McCain as a "reckless hothead," and asks "does it have a chance of working?"

I say the answer is yes - it has a chance of working. I'm not saying it will work, and I'm not saying it's the best message ever. But it has a definite chance of working, for a few reasons.

First and foremost, it's consistent with the way the public already views McCain. Other memes, which should be more damaging - the Bush III meme, especially - require a bit of swimming upstream. For years, McCain has held the title of Maverick in the eyes of the public and the press. And, while he no longer deserves that title, it will take a lot to convince low-information voters of that fact.

Whereas, with the trigger-happy meme, it goes in lock-step with everything we know about the man. Even what we (and by we, I mean the press & the electorate) like about him. It is one thing that is consistently true all the way back down the narrative line. Now, Obama doesn't have to trot out a bunch of Phillip Butlers the way the Swift Boaters did in '04 or talk about the C-word if he doesn't want to get his hands dirty. There's plenty of poorly chosen one-liners, Senate floor tantrums and Iraq War grandstanding that will do the job just fine.

And secondly, it subtly ties McCain in with Bush - in a way that's much more effective than hammering home "Bush's Third Term" over and over again. It's effective because it plays on the same emotions - the war fatigue, the sense that Americans are dying for our president's (vice president's?) whim.

If Team Obama gets this point across, then the only card McCain has available to him will backfire sensationally. Every time he tries to talk about judgment, experience, the 3am phone call, he will be undermined by his own carefully-nurtured narrative. At least, there's a chance of that.

Contractor Clinton vs. Architect Obama (To Win the Working Class, Obama Must Speak Their Language)

Earlier in the campaign, I used an analogy to illustrate the difference between Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama each see a car for the very first time. Hillary opens the hood and asks “how does it work?” Barack gets in the driver’s seat and muses “where can we go with it?”

The analogy was meant to describe their divergent approaches to government: Hillary the policy wonk vs. Barack the big-picture reformer. But as Senator Obama struggles to wrest the fiercely loyal blue collar vote from Senator Clinton, the analogy takes on new meaning.

Beyond the Clichés
For all the clichés of identity politics – the racial divide, the generation gap, the culture wars – the pundits have missed a more fundamental distinction. Call it forest/trees, process/product or left brain/right brain – these are the true differences between the two candidates, and they’re reflected to a T by their supporters.

Demographers are fond of pointing out that Obama is a hit with college-educated populations, while Clinton retains her base of union workers (despite Obama’s near-monopoly on union endorsements) – and the quick translation into economic terms seems like a no-brainer. But “Bittergate” notwithstanding, the causal relationship has been overstated: people don’t support Obama because they’re rich and no one pulls the lever for Hillary simply because they're poor.

There is no logical, policy-based reason for “down-market” Democrats to prefer Sen. Clinton to Obama any more than there is for gun owners to. Hillary’s personal narrative contains little class struggle and her policies are certainly no friendlier to the working man. (In fact, Hillary’s reticence to move the cap on Social Security tax suggests more sympathy for the upper middle class.) The difference between the two lies in how they draw their conclusions and, more importantly, communicate them to voters. Some people respond viscerally to broad calls for sweeping change. Others demand specific, concrete, policy-oriented solutions: what does it mean for me?

While the blue collar/white collar distinction provides a convenient shorthand, it rings true in a manner that goes well beyond income level. By and large, blue collar jobs are tactical jobs. They’re focused on the individual elements that make up a whole: building, assembling, diagnosing, repairing. People who devote their lives to these pursuits are tactical thinkers, they break a mission down to its inherent steps and proceed incrementally.

Architects vs. Contractors
Nowhere is this distinction more apparent than in the construction industry. Architects, famous for their lofty plans drawn up in air-conditioned offices, face a disconnect when trying to communicate with contractors. Unless the architect comes to the table armed with a comprehensive understanding of materials, man-hours and job specs, the architect and contractor quickly arrive at an impasse. The artist’s rendering may be beautiful, but without a sound tactical plan, it’s meaningless.

Similarly, Barack Obama’s rendering of a new American architecture sounds gorgeous, but until it’s translated into a concrete roadmap of steps that directly affect Americans it’s, well, just words. Taking on special interests sounds nice, but how does that fill our tanks with gas? Sure, we’re in favor of bringing our country together, but we also want to bring our kids to college.

So, while Obama shows off his working-class bona fides by recounting his days organizing steel workers or reliving his modest single-parent upbringing, he misses a golden opportunity. These voters aren’t interested in whether he is rich or poor (voters tend to assume candidates are rich, regardless); they may not even want to know whether he can relate to their problems. All they want to know is how he will solve them. He’s already won over the architects, now it’s time to work on the contractors.

The Electability Fallacy

Watching the returns roll in last night and suffering through the months-old analysis, it struck me that everyone is spreading the same premise. Promulgated and disseminated by the Clinton camp, this premise maintains that, if Barack Obama loses a constituency to Hillary Clinton in the primary, he’s bound to lose that constituency to John McCain in November. The premise is so prima facie faulty that it’s embarrassing to see intelligent, studied people support it and spout it as their own. Obvious in its short-sightedness and comical in its leaps of logic, it’s still pervasive.

I call this the Electability Fallacy. It devalues entire blocs of Democratic loyalists, overlooks Sen. Clinton’s revered status in the Democratic Party and completely discounts the power and ferocity of the Clinton political machine.

Fallacy 1: Clinton Voters = McCain Voters
Senator Clinton’s rightward veers notwithstanding (furtive trade agreements, threats of war with Iran, attacks on Senator Obama’s patriotism), this Democratic primary remains just that. Both candidates have captured reliable Democratic constituencies, and their supporters are to be commended in their enthusiasm and devotion. But to suggest that Sen. Clinton’s voters will defect to the Republican Party, should Obama win the nomination – voting against generations of tradition and their own self-interest, prolonging a deeply unpopular war and extending disastrous economic policies – is nothing if not hyperbolic.

We’ve seen “down-market” voters opt for much haughtier candidates than Barack Obama, and a young Bill Clinton captured the senior vote against a much older George Bush in 1992. It’s a wonder her supporters don’t cry foul at the insinuation that a Clinton voter in the primary is simply a McCain voter in the general.

Fallacy 2: It’s Easier to Convert Clinton Voters than McCain Voters
Clinton voters are rabid and loyal. As loaded with negatives as she may be (or “baggage,” in her own words), Hillary Clinton is beloved among Democrats. Moreover, Bill Clinton remains the most popular living ex-President and, of all politicians in either party, no one is more revered among Party faithful than the Clintons. No one, perhaps, but Barack Obama. As any political observer will attest, the Clintons do not part with their voters easily.

The support for Hillary Clinton among the Democratic base is much stronger than McCain’s among the Republican base, and to erode her support by 15 percentage points in two weeks in a state as stacked in Sen. Clinton’s favor as Pennsylvania is nothing to scoff at.

Fallacy 3: A Tight Race with Sen. Clinton is a Sign of Weakness
The suggestion that “if Obama can’t beat Hillary Clinton, he can’t possibly beat John McCain and the Republican Attack Machine” is simply naïve, if not disingenuous. We’ve heard it repeated ad nauseam, even by Dr. Evil, Karl Rove himself. In any other primary, this would certainly be a valid – and fearsome – argument. Their bag of tricks is vast and well-documented. An ordinary politician in an ordinary primary might stop short of such tactics, but no one ever accused a Clinton of being an ordinary politician.

As esteemed commentators have pointed out, the Clintons are not afraid to tear their Party down to get back to the White House. The Clintons have never been stellar Democrats, from triangulating on policy to intra-party quarrels and behind-the-scenes back-biting. To believe that Hillary Clinton will abdicate a place she considers home – 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – without a bitter, mean-spirited and, yes, dirty fight is not to know Hillary Clinton at all. There is no better opposition research team than Clinton's and no strategist more comfortable in the muck than Mark Penn (whose strategies still guide the campaign posthumously). Beating Hillary Clinton is no easy task, and the fact that Barack Obama has done so and continues to do so is an unassailable testament to his toughness, his poise and the clarity of his own message.

The question of lasting damage to the Democratic Party is one to consider, and there is a strong argument to be made that a protracted, bitter primary will dampen what would otherwise be a favorable landscape for Democrats. But to further the Clinton spin that this race between Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton somehow casts doubt upon Obama’s ability to “close the deal” or “win Democratic constituents” in a general election against John McCain is short-sighted. At best.

A Sucker Speaks Up

I was recently inspired by Reality TV. Wait, there's more: once, in college, I was moved to write a manifesto (which then spurred a bit of a campus mini-movement) after attending a U2 concert. In other words, I’m a sap. Or worse, I suppose: a sucker.

I’ve looked for ways to explain away this sucker tendency. As a writer of stories myself, have I mastered the ability to suspend disbelief? Am I a character-driven sympathizer who over-identifies with compelling personalities? Am I just gullible?

The answer, before you write me off, is an unequivocal No. I’m a genuine, smirking member of the Snark Generation. A TV-referencing, McSweeney’s reading, eye-rolling Gawker commenter. What’s more, I’ve spent the past decade working behind the magic curtain in the marketing and advertising industry. I understand the tricks. I know how to walk the line between false advertising and “enhancing the positive.” I’m a champion parser.

So, how to reconcile the two? What am I doing crying at movies? Why do I own multiple Bright Eyes records? How is it possible that I get goose bumps during the Star Spangled Banner at Yankee Stadium? And isn’t “inspired by Reality TV” an oxymoron?

Let’s start with the last question. The show was Oprah’s Big Give. Oprah’s Big Give is a thinly veiled, shameless advertisement for, well, as many items as they can cram into 40 minutes: Oprah, first and foremost, Ford, to a slightly lesser extent, followed by each of the donated items, services and celebrities who show up to help out. It features “TVLand” contrivances and counterproductive elements like an incongruous, competitive atmosphere. It’s focused on short-term, bombastic displays of charity, rather than on long term solutions. The recipients come secondary – tertiary, even – to the contestants and to Oprah herself.

But at the end of the day, what’s done is done. There are no actors on the show and unless someone is taking everything back once the cameras stop rolling, these are real life-changing events for real Americans with real needs. In one of the lamer bits of a recent episode, the most self-aggrandizing contestant (Rachael) shows up, hurriedly pays a woman’s delinquent heating bill and forwards her two more months. The segment was not well-produced. The narrative thread was missing, the timing was all wrong. It was incongruous for a million reasons. Practically before the woman can wipe the confusion off her face, the team is back in their customized Big Give Ford SUV and zooming toward commercial break. It’s hard not to shake your head, roll your eyes, blog snarkily.

But even as the cameras are on to the next story of contestant in-fighting and incidental charity, the fact is, a poor woman’s life has just changed. And regardless of what ABC or Ford or Oprah’s handlers – or even Oprah herself – intend to get out of the program, there is one person who just got something immeasurable.

There are a million ways to criticize the program. You can call it rigged, contrived, self-aggrandizing, two-faced – maybe even downright hypocritical. But no one can deny the simple fact that the show makes good things happen to deserving people. And if that needs to be packaged within a derivative game-show atmosphere, so be it.

What's so wrong with a television show that sells ads, fulfills the needs of an episodic prime-time format, appeals to some base instincts in order to get ratings, and is making real, tangible changes in American communities in the meantime? Everybody gets what they want, and the greater good is served, ever-so-slightly. In other arenas, this kind of arbitration is the height of success. The kind of win-win-win that makes legends, sells autobiographies and, well... gets ratings. In those arenas, to support such an effort is not gullibility, but insider savvy.

So call me a sucker, if you must. But I know of a woman in Georgia who will agree that to do so is to miss the point entirely.

DEMOCRATIC PARTY v. CONVENTIONAL WISDOM

It’s bound to go down as the persistent narrative of this campaign: time and time again, the Conventional Wisdom has been proven wrong by the efforts of the candidates and will of the voters.

The current Conventional Wisdom holds that the longer the Democratic primary continues, the worse it is for the Democratic Party. But this “Wisdom” may be as faulty as Hillary’s “inevitability” argument or the post-mortems that streamed in after Iowa. In fact, this battle royale could prove beneficial for the Party as well as the eventual nominee, thanks to the abundance of free media, favorable focus on Democratic policy issues and training effect this extended race will have on the eventual winner.

It may sound like a stretch, but improbable scenarios are the hallmark of the 2008 Democratic primary.

De facto incumbents
A common concern is that Democratic fundraisers will face dry coffers in the general election, having tapped every resource during the primary. But here’s where the Fourth Estate comes into play: free press.

Our national obsession with this primary has made Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama the most common images on news desks from coast to coast. If ever two campaigns didn’t need free press, it’s these two –record-breaking fundraisers with seemingly endless reservoirs of cash. But this year the press is free and copious. The Democrats monopolized pre-Super Tuesday coverage: even a certain spouse garnered twice as much airtime as the top Republican newsmakers, and Sen. Obama alone won more coverage than all Republicans combined.

In this incumbentless election, Democrats’ dominance of news broadcasts makes them the most familiar faces in America – de facto incumbents, if you will – which gives them a clear advantage.

Re-framing the discussion
Even the politically-averse can’t avoid being bombarded by Democratic talking points or ad-nauseam dissection of minute policy differences. With the Republican race effectively concluded, coverage of Republicans – and therefore Republican ideas – is secondary.

When the main event features two senators of converse personalities but nearly identical voting records, minor policy differences are magnified – and the gap between them becomes the middle. To the extent that voters adjust to this new politics, they, too, tend to move in that direction.

The result is an inadvertent reversal of something master political strategists such as Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove spent years to create as they endeavored to frame the discourse in such a way that Democratic ideas seemed unviable and irrelevant. But as we agonize over which healthcare plan is truly “universal” or which candidate will most zealously punish corporations, over tax hikes for the rich or bailouts for the working class, and over who will remove forces from Iraq the fastest, these ideas get mainstreamed.

Buoyed by a near-complete collapse of the Neo-Conservative agenda, Democratic policies are emerging from the shadows. From the environment to the economy to foreign policy, American voters are giving progressive ideas a good, hard listen.

The wild card phenomenon
Finally, no exercise in handicapping would be complete without a sports analogy. It’s no secret that a political campaign is a lot like a football game, won with an impenetrable defense, a brutal ground game and incremental advances into an opponent’s territory, ultimately building that all-important momentum.

Sports fans will attest that teams emerging from hard-fought contests often perform better in their next round than teams that have rested or coasted to victory. As dramatically witnessed in last month’s Super Bowl, where a wild card emerged victorious over the most successful team ever, it turns out that rest & relaxation are no match for consistency, precision and stamina cultivated by ongoing competition. And few campaigns demonstrate more clearly the importance of timing and momentum than this 2008 Democratic primary.

Heading into the general election, many predict that rest and wagon-circling will do Republicans good. But Democrats would be wise to consider the 2007 NFL season and the triumph of the wild card.

American voters, rabid sports fans that we are, love a good upset – especially if it means overturning the Conventional Wisdom. After all, the only thing we know is how much we don’t know; the only constant is change. And isn’t change what Democrats seek in 2008?

Of course, as we approach “Mini-Tuesday” on March 4, Conventional Wisdom maintains that the race is nearing its end. Which, according to the narrative of this primary, may bode well for Sen. Clinton. And, more importantly, for the Democratic Party.

BARACK OBAMA, YOUR REASONS

That first post was long and filled with the platitudes you've heard ad nauseam over the course of the primary campaign, and I can tell by the look on your face that you're not convinced. You want to know what he's done.

Let's get to it. His time as a community organizer in Chicago is not to be scoffed at. Having spent four years as a community organizer on the none-too-mean streets of Olympia, WA, I can say that it's real work. At times, it's not work at all, it's (to borrow a term) a fight. It's not easy, glamorous or self-serving – especially for an Ivy League grad who would go on to be President of Harvard Law Review.

Barack has run more political campaigns and held elected office for longer than Hillary. He has taken tough political stands that bucked the establishment and special interests. In notoriously corrupt Chicago, he passed ethics reform; he authored and passed a law monitoring racial profiling and videotaping interrogations… and still won the Police endorsement. As a result of his bill, the Washington Post named Illinois "one of the best states in the nation on campaign finance disclosure."

In the Senate, he has passed 19 bills, to Hillary's 10. When he stormed in, trailed by Hosannas, the Senate leadership tried to put Obama in his place by saddling him with a veritable minefield: ethics reform. He authored a law requiring lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who bundle for them. His bills have championed economic reforms, consumer safety, energy and the environment. This post is a very level-headed look (it's titled "I Refuse to Buy into the Obama Hype") at Clinton and Obama's Senate records, side-by-side. It's long, but enlightening.

Lastly (and I'm sorry, again, if you're tired of hearing this), what's most important and telling is what he didn't do: support the Iraq war or vote to support Bush's preparation for war with Iran. The most crucial quality a President has is judgment. Whoever is elected President will face issues that he or she has never faced before, that no amount of time on either end of PA Ave. can prepare them for. There will be intelligence, there will be advisors, there will be demands of every type of action, but ultimately, the President will exercise judgment.

Every Presidential victory and misstep that we can name through our history – from the LA purchase to recovering from the Depression to every one of our wars and scandals – have boiled down to judgment. I believe the judgment Obama has exhibited to this point, along with his international appeal and progressive post-boomer perspective, are just what we need to restored the United States to a position of leadership.

OK, I've said enough. I hope I didn't overwhelm you or come off as preachy! Now it's back to integrated digital marketing solutions...

BARACK OBAMA, MY REASONS

OK, so. Let's kick this thing off.

Barack Obama. Let me start by saying that there seem to be two schools of thought about the Presidency: the President as leader and the President as chief executive. I think this cuts to the heart of the debate in the Democratic Party right now, and illuminates the utter disbelief that seems to be coursing through Clinton camps these days (even though Bill was more former than latter).

I recently told a friend that if Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama saw a car for the first time, Hillary would say "how does it work?" Barack would say "where can we take it?" And my decision this election is based on my deep concern about where we're being taken.

Let me say that there is no doubt as to Hillary's immense ability as a lawmaker and politician. She's clearly gifted and brilliant and I don't think anyone - even those on the Right - will disagree. But she's also terribly divisive. Forget for a moment the numerous questions about shady backroom deals. Forget the more practical consideration that Hillary Clinton seems to be the only thing that can get Republicans to polls this November, and think about the broader picture. Can we really afford another 51/49 electorate leading to 8+ more years of culture wars? We are at a crucial juncture in our history, and the only way to move forward on the environment, restore our standing in the global community and comprehensively overhaul domestic institutions like Social Security, education and (currently non-existent) healthcare is through a broad coalition, working together with common goals. There's nothing starry-eyed about that, it's pure practicality. We need these people on our side, behind our nominee.

But back to the starry eyes. To be an Obama supporter is to believe that the majority of Americans do share these common goals, and the way to bring about change is to work together to solve them. To be an Obama supporter is also to believe that the hard work ultimately falls more to the citizenry than the government, and inspiring people to take an active role in their government is the best thing any leader can do. As such, to be an Obama supporter is to be proactively engaged.

I find it baffling (and, sure, a bit maddening) when people say with such pride that Hillary is a "fighter." A fighter she may be (putting aside, for a moment, instances where she declined to fight for labor unions or a 12 year-old rape victim), but what if all of us fought these battles? Over 1 million people have donated to Obama's campaign. 10,20,30,000 people show up to hear him speak, many inspired for the first time by a politician.

While Hillary may be a fighter, Obama is creating new fighters. This new wave of civic pride and engagement is, quite frankly, the only thing that can save the United States from the brink of irreparable decline.