Guest Blog Pundit Johanna Wald: What Obama Has to Do in Tonight's Debate and Over the Next Two Weeks to Seal the Deal
Barak Obama is on the verge of putting this contest away. This is what, in my opinion, he needs to do in tonight’s debate and over the next two weeks to fend off the sharks :
1. Somehow respond to, get past, and diffuse wife Michelle’s statement about this being the only time in her adult life that she has been proud of America. He needs to perform the tricky task of being totally loyal to and supportive of his wife, while also defanging her statement before it comes back to bite them in the general election.
2. Be careful about any more charges of plagiarism—cite sources, cite them again, and then again just to make sure. He can get away with the Patrick comparisons this time, but not if he does it again. Then, like Al Gore and exaggeration, and John Kerry and flip flopping, he gets branded forever with a character flaw, fairly or not.
3. Be wary of making statements like “I am aware of my imperfections.” It sounded too much like the subtext was: “But there really aren’t many.” That statement came perilously close to “You’re likable enough, Hillary” in smacking of a certain hubris that he needs to keep under wraps.
4. Outwonk Hillary —bore the audience tonight and Tuesday with concrete details about specific policy initiatives. He can afford to be dull right now, he needs to show that he has mastered the finer details of his policy proposals.
5. Challenge Hillary’s assertions—more or less blindly accepted by the media—that she is experienced, battle-tested, and ready to lead. Her campaign’s chaos and incompetence has shown her to be anything but, her judgment has been deeply flawed in a variety of ways, her inability to manage her finances, her messages, or her surrogates suggest she is not in charge and her legislative track record is pretty flimsy. In fact, she has no real history of fighting hard for anything besides hers and her husband’s political survival. What major fight or issue has she successfully spearheaded in the Senate, and when has she shown real political courage in bucking popular causes or in championing unpopular ones? How many of her famous “solutions” has she really been able to push through?
(Note from Steven Stark: Johanna Wald is a relative of mine and a good political analyst!)