Matt Yglesias's point on the self-deception evident in focus groups cuts in a lot of different directions. It's definitely not the case that voters want to hear more policy details from Barack Obama. If it were, then the Obama campaign would be in good shape, as they'd just have the candidate read out some policy details. When the focus groupers complain that there's too much oratory and not enough substance, they're actually getting at something much harder for the Obama campaign to combat: The perception that he's all glitz. The Obama campaign's struggle is that, over the course of the summer, they basically let their candidate get defined as a dilettante, and cleverly, the McCain camp used as its supporting evidence much that's intrinsic to Obama: That he gives soaring speeches and is attractive and generates extreme levels of enthusiasm. They defined Obama, in other words, as a fad, and people don't trust fads. It's not clear how Obama campaign combats that perception given that it's anchored to the fundamentals of his political style, but they're either going to have to blunt the concern or open up a much greater vulnerability in McCain.
