CAMPAIGN OUTSIDER Yes we can, seriously
By Muhammad Cohen
HONG KONG - Between Republican Senator John McCain's incoherent flailing on the
Wall Street aid package and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's verbal
meltdowns rearing Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's head over America,
the commentariat seems convinced Democratic Senator Barack Obama has the
presidency won.
Even Palin's expectations-beating performance in the vice presidential debate -
she stood erect for 90 minutes and cloyed without drooling - failed to alter
the conclusion.
The commentariat, as usual, is way out of line. With four weeks to go, the
election is still up for grabs. That means Obama is in trouble. The Democratic
ticket faces a big challenge in the home stretch because of both the situation
and Obama's track record.
The Illinois senator needs to bust another move - and hope that no external
factor such as an October surprise capture of Osama bin Laden by "surge" troops
in Baghdad or Anchorage - to seal the deal.
It's become a cliche in this election season that McCain is defying
expectations by remaining within striking distance of Obama. The issues, from
Iraq to even the pre-meltdown economy, run solidly against the Republicans.
(That's why McCain and his campaign want to talk about anything except the
issues.)
With Obama opening a sliver of daylight ahead of McCain in the polls, the
pundits think the election is finally behaving as ordained. Obama was messing
up before, so now that he's stopped, the commentariat thinks Obama needs to
play it safe and make sure he doesn't do anything to prevent nature from taking
its course and sweeping him into the White House.
Don't freeze O'Bomber
Running out the clock is never a crowd-pleasing strategy, and it's not one of
Obama's strengths: his basketball nickname was O'Bomber because he couldn't
wait to shoot. Obama's campaign went into the stall during the Democratic
primary season after his February winning streak gave him a virtually
insurmountable lead in the delegate count.
While Obama was taking the air out of the ball, his opponent Hillary Clinton
got pumped up, found a message that connected to voters, and set out the
strategy for the Republicans to use against Obama. Clinton's momentum over the
final weeks in effect turned Obama into a lame duck front-runner. Limping to
the required votes to win the nomination robbed Obama of any momentum from
capturing the nomination.
In the general election, there is no cushion of committed delegates for Obama
to lean on. He needs to keep sprinting to the finish line. The difficulty is
that Obama still needs something to run on. His rise in the polls has been
largely due to not jumping around like a headless chicken on hot tar in
response to the Wall Street crisis as McCain did or talking like a crystal meth
addict in interviews as Palin has. Palin's failure to self-destruct in last
week's debate may signal that the McCain side's losing streak is over.
The Republican side's incredible ability to ignore reality makes it
particularly dangerous. If anyone needed a reminder, Palin provided it in a Fox
News interview where she shrugged off her embarrassingly incomprehensible
responses to Katie Couric as "no matter what you say, you are going to get
clobbered on the answer". Perhaps she thought Putin was listening and wanted to
confuse him.
Ask tomorrow about today
The McCain campaign will spin anything any which way it can. If Wall Street
recovers in the next couple of weeks, the campaign will rewrite McCain into a
leading role, fostering the bipartisan compromises that made the legislation
possible. If it fails, McCain will morph into the brave politician who stood up
to Wall Street but couldn't hold back the tidal wave of special interests that
let bankers' greedy hands make a grab into the US Treasury at the expense of
the American taxpayer, the fundamental strength along with American workers of
the American economy.
Having seemingly sold his soul for his last shot at the White House, McCain is
comfortable saying anything he thinks will get him elected. But the real master
here is Palin. Her extraordinary lack of knowledge and intellectual curiosity
(remarkably similar to George W Bush) make her an empty vessel that can be
filled with any venom desired. No matter how implausible or inaccurate, Palin
can deliver the lines in that folksy twang as if she believes it without
blinking, punctuated with much winking.
The financial crisis also presents an opportunity for Obama to craft a message
to bring home the prize in November. To do it, he should revive the slogan "Yes
we can" that served him so well in the primaries. But this time, steal a page
from Hillary Clinton's campaign and make "Yes we can" about competence.
White House vacancy
Washington's bumbling response to the potential financial meltdown was
frightening. It's entirely understandable and correct that Congress was
skeptical when the Bush administration declared an emergency. McCain did his
part to inject politics into the crisis, helping the process breakdown into
partisan tribalism. But the White House did a lousy job of convincing Congress
and the American people that the crisis was real, and completely abandoned any
responsibility for managing the legislative response. At a time when global
markets and the nation needed to see steadfast leadership, Bush was barely
present.
A prime-time speech that failed to connect, a photo-op meeting that did more
harm than good, and a couple of off-hour statements highlighted Bush's
detachment from the situation. If the president can't be bothered to stop
playing video games and come out of his bunker to address the situation
seriously, then why should legislators?
Sending Congress a three-page proposal for solving the crisis was a bad joke,
as was Bush's failure to bring his party along with his proposal. While we
heard from Republicans and Democrats about all the lawmakers that got into the
trenches to craft a passable bill, there wasn't a single mention of anyone from
the White House pitching in, or even paying attention. Yes, it's difficult to
get Congress to vote on unpopular legislation, especially in an election year,
but the White House didn't even try. It was as there was no one home at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue.
Rather than pointing to favorable polls - note to all campaigns and media:
voters do not make decisions based on polls - or dignifying the latest
scurrilous attack from the Republican side, Obama should talk about how he'll
make presidency competent again. The White House will be a responsible partner
with Congress to serve the American people and work together to realize their
aspirations, instead of putting new roadblocks in their way.
To make the point stick, Obama can chronicle the Bush administration's record
of failure: ignoring the signs of threat ahead of 9/11; ideologically driven
massive misjudgments in Iraq and North Korea; the bungled response to Hurricane
Katrina; and the disastrous economic policies that took the government from
surplus to record deficits, destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs, and led
the world financial system to the brink of collapse.
Obama should assure voters that his administration will never declare an
emergency without thinking through the response and bringing Congress on board.
Most importantly, when the nation faces problems, he'll lead the search for
solutions rather than ducking out the side door.
Both Obama and his campaign need to realize that first and biggest national
emergency they face is winning this election, and they need to show they are up
to the task. It's time for "Yes we can" to become Obama's slogan again, and for
the candidate and the campaign to live up to it.
Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America�s story
to the world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air (www.hongkongonair.com),
a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal,
high finance and cheap lingerie.
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