We have David Brooks and Bob Herbert in New York Times making the case for Obama to explain how his ‘new politics’ will solve the day to day problems of Americans; or else Obama his bid to Hillary. It should be quite clear to Obama campaign and all of his supporters that ‘delegate math’ argument can only go so far.
It is quite likely even after loosing all coming states to Hillary, Obama could be little bit higher in delegate counts than Hillary going into the convention. But at that point, will that narrow lead (say of 20 or 50 delegates with no resounding victory under the belt in last few months) save Obama campaign? No. Worse any attempt at that point to haggle on the basis of mere delegate counts will reflect very poorly on Obama. Knife points on petty issues like narrow delegate lead is expected from Hillary and not from Obama.
The reason is clear since it is Obama who has been promising the New Politics. Game for Hillary is ‘status quo Dems’, a risk free non-sexy alternative to Bush GOP and that should be sufficient for the average Joe. So what then that she will not deliver anything more than continuous brawl, arrogant presidency and elitist politics? At least she will ‘feed’ you and there will not be jingoistic wars. That is all, that is what you will get with Hillary Presidency.
People are badgered by Bush Presidency over the last 8 years. The median income of $49K in 1999 is now $48K and if you add depreciating dollar to that, it is really a devastating blow economically. People are frightened for tomorrow. Economy is grounding most of Americans and caskets draped in American flag from Iraq still have not stopped along with trillions dollars going into pits outside American shores. In this gloomy period, what is wrong if people opt for non-flashy, nothing great mundane presidency but the one who does not seem to bring lot of risk? It is not that people do not understand meanness of Hillary or machinations of Clinton political machine. But they are ready to pay that price for the ‘so called steady returns’ she is promising to people.
Given this and the blunt assessment from David Brooks that all that Obama has is the New Politics, it is imperative that Obama explains how his New Politics translates into safety of average Joe, bread for an average family and better well being of America. This explanation needs to happen at two levels: 1) as an intellectual argument in the form of White Papers or big policy statements; 2) and town hall meetings on campaign trail with smaller groups where Obama answers people’s questions.
There are several specific aspects where this vision of New Politics needs to be explained: culture of politics, health care policy, national security, foreign policy, economic policy, global warming & energy policy and Social security. Other aspects like standard wage issues, education and law and order issues are important but can be taken up over a period. So far only the first two topics (culture of politics and health care policy) have been beaten to the death and folks all over America have reasonable idea about where these two campaigns stand. It may very well be the case, Hillary’s Health Care Plan may have any edge in terms of popularity, but Obama’s plan is well known and people are receptive there too.
Do we hear consistently that with Hillary’s health care plan Fed could deduct contributions forcefully from people’s wages? There are no option apart from such draconian measures to ‘mandate universal’ plan. And that is the thing Obama plan avoids. So do we see sufficient marketing by Obama campaign that it is an example where Obama does not want to prescribe to the Orthodoxy of Blue State Politics, but rather go beyond partisan measures to solve problems realistically? Who is more realistic here? Obama or Hillary, especially with her known history of failed ‘health care reforms’ for the simply reasons of extreme partisanship in early 90s?
What we want Obama to explain is how when ‘political aisles’ are crossed, laws like No Child Left Behind get addressed. It is his surrogate Ted Kennedy who made it possible when he worked with Bush. These bipartisan measures do not have to be perfect, but those at least do not deprive Americans of some benefits for the ‘purity in policy’.
So we need to hear how mixture of Left and Right wing policies would address America’s economic problems and energy independence. We want Obama to explain in concrete terms how the ‘new approach’ to foreign policy will elevate America from the international quagmire we have landed into.
While this is explained, Obama needs to tell us how Hillary style opportunistic bipartisanship in authorizing Iraq war will be avoided. It is a classic example to vividly indicate New Politics does not mean agreeing always with your opponents. New Politics also means taking uncompromising stance in some core areas and compromising in many other areas.
With Hillary, Americans get exactly opposite – she compromised with Bush where she should not have (authorizing Iraq war) and she is unbending when she needs to be accommodative (her failed health care plan in 90s).
What we need from Obama is not a negative campaign, but explanation about how his New Politics will solve our day to day problems while Hillary is hardly any realistic or ‘guaranteed returns type’.
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