Noam Scheiber's critique of the problems Obama's unifying, reformist message poses for his campaign is very smart. Scheiber writes:
The problem with Obama's reformist message is that it prevents him from singling out Bush and the GOP in a way that's very satisfying. In his speech to the fire fighters, for example, Obama only assigned blame elliptically. "It's a noble calling, what you do. ... But sometimes Washington forgets," he said. "Instead of making your job easier ... they try to cut funding so you couldn't buy masks and the suits that you needed." Later, he concluded: "What keeps Washington from doing all that it needs to do to better protect our fire fighters ... [is] the smallness of our politics."
But it's not Washington that has tried to cut funding for first-responders and won't give them the equipment they need. It's Bush's GOP. It's not the smallness of our politics that's holding these things up. It's the smallness of their politics. Pretty much every Democrat in Congress, given the chance to fix these indignities, would do it in an instant.
That's quite true, and quite smart. But I think the problems with Obama the message stem from problems with Obama the candidate. A week or so ago, a reader suggested I watch this Townhall with Obama. And I found it striking. The first question comes from the town's mayor, an older woman who's not yet eligible for Medicare, but can't afford her insurance, which has more than doubled its premiums since 2000. She'd love to get all those tests the doctors are recommending, she says, but she just can't afford them.
Obama stands up, looks at her, and says, "Well, your situation is obviously not unique." And he's right, it's not. But that wasn't the wisest response. From there, Obama takes what should be a morally impassioning issue and delivers a cool, calm, smart, and bloodless disquisition on various problems within the health care system. He's too removed. There's no sense that this grabs him in his gut, or that he'd stay up nights thinking about her plight. He answers the question, in fact, much like I'd blog the question. Facts and figures, calm analysis. That's good for a blog. Not so much for a candidate. And that's because a blog and a candidate reach different audiences looking for different things.
