Saturday, September 13, 2008

From James Forman

From James Forman:
If you missed yesterday's interview with former Bush and Repub strategist Matthew Dowd, it is 5 mins. and a must listen. 
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94499918

Dowd lays out exactly what McCain is trying to do by coopting the change message, and despite being a republican he sounds skeptical that it will work.  If Obama fights back, and fights back smart.  At the end Dowd says that the Republican message seems to be: "we broke it, now let us fix it."  Let's use that.

Everybody has a piece of advice for Obama and Biden right now, so here's mine: pretty much every pundit and the campaign seem to agree that the Dems will win if they can return the conversation to some of the issues which clearly seperate the parties, and where the Dems have solutions that the public prefers. I think that's right.  But the interesting thing is that Obama and Biden and Clinton and others are already saying the right things.  (ok, Biden sometimes).  I've watched some of the stump speeches on youtube.  They are saying it.  But they cannot seem to get any media attention.  Obama giving a town hall meeting in Norfolk is great, needs to happen, but it is not really news.  So 3 thoughts:

First, say the same thing (pretty much what he said in his acceptance speech at the convention, plus spending more time on some of the themes Hillary has been discussing like equal pay), but figure out a venue or event that will attract attention.  National town hall, with Obama and Clintons together in one venue, Biden in another, key surrogates in swing states in a couple more, all hitting off the same page.  I don't know exactly, hell I'm not a politico, but I do think the issue is more of breaking through the media haze, not changing the message.

Second thought: Remember that debate where Hillary talked about health care for the first 15 minutes, refused to change the subject, just kept coming back and back and back to it again?  Obama and every surrogate should watch that debate and learn.  At the time it seemed annoying to us Obamans, but it was effective because it was 1) substantively on an issue that was a winner for Hillary and 2) in tone it showed that she would be a relentless advocate.  At the end of the debate if you remembered one thing it was that Hillary would never ever give up on the battle for health care.   It was a side of her that I really like, and honestly, if I hadn't been so partisan in the heat of the nomination I would have given her more credit for.  It worked, and is largely why 49.5% of the Dem electorate voted for her.  We need to infuse some of that attitude into everything our side does from now into the election.  We have solutions to the problems Americans care about, we just have to press and press and press until everybody is both sick of hearing us and totally convinced we will fight doggedly for what we believe in.

Third thought, if you still are planning on giving to the campaign, do it now.  Don't wait.  $ now is better than $ a month from now.  $ now helps hire organizers to register voters (only 2 2 weeks left for that), as well as by ads etc.  And if you donate now, for only $30 you can get one of the brand new Obama-Biden t shirts. 
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/splashtshirt

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