Obama needs to hit McCain much harder. He also needs to focus his attacks so that they win the election. Wall Street, bless its cold heart, has given him an opening to do that by turning the discussion back to the issues. The economy is perfectly tailored for Obama to win because he cares and he’s shown he cares. What does it mean to be a community organizer? It means you care enough to go out and help people who are hurt by the economy.
How does he deliver this message quickly, passionately? He needs the six-second introduction that tells us why he should be President, and it must hit us in the gut. That message is about the economy and about jobs.
Obama must be able to say in one sentence why he’s better than McCain on these issues. When he met with financial experts recently, he was asked to give a three-sentence summary of why he should be President, but it took him five minutes to answer the question.
Let’s try to whittle this down a bit.
The most important fundamental of the economy is employment. Jobs bring money into families, which enables them to buy the things they need. Without this engine, the economy is little more than a theory. Why should Obama be President? He should simply say this:
I care about your jobs. I proved that by going out as a community organizer to help people who lost their jobs. What I saw would break your heart. I understand the fundamentals of the economy at a gut level, and I will fight for your jobs.
Really, this is all you need to know about Obama. It’s all you need to know about the economy.
Obama needs to show that he is angry, but not about attacks on him. That’s just politics. He needs to show his anger about what’s happening to the American people. He should be angry, but about the right thing and in the right way. He must avoid the trap of becoming just an angry black man or just another complainer. The press will happily pigeonhole him if he gives them the chance.
Obama should be angry about jobs. When you go to a closing steel mill, Obama, how does that make you feel? When you see people thrown out of work, knowing that their families will suffer, maybe be out on the streets, how does that make you feel? When you see the children in these families look at their mother and their father with that question in their eyes, "Can you protect me?" how does that make you feel?
All across the rust belt, people have felt that pain for years. If you go to Allegany or Mahoning or Cuyahoga or out to Detroit or across to Sault Ste. Marie, for the last fifty years people have faced this hopeless suffering again and again.
Obama, the people want to know if you can protect them. Show them you can. Show them you care about their jobs and that you are angry about the loss of jobs. Show them that you will do what the Republicans can’t do, which is bring jobs back to them. They don’t care about bailing out Wall Street. They care about feeding their children. I’m angry about it. Are you?