SubscribeIf nothing else, a presidential campaign tests a candidate's ability to think strategically and tactically and to manage a very complex organization. We have three plausible candidates remaining--Obama, Clinton and John McCain--and Obama has proved himself the best executive by far. Both the Clinton and the McCain campaigns have gone broke at crucial moments. So much for fiscal responsibility. McCain has been effective only when he runs as a guerrilla; in both 2000 and '08, he was hapless at building a coherent campaign apparatus. Clinton's sins are different: arrogance and the inability to see past loyalty to hire the best people for the job and to fire those who prove inadequate. "If nothing else, we've learned that Obama probably has the ability to put together a smooth-running Administration," said a Clinton super-delegate. "That's pretty important."Setting aside the question of who will ultimately win the general election, Obama's experience as a community organizer is really shining through in his campaign's effectiveness -- astoundingly so when you consider Clinton's 100% name recognition and 20-30% poll leads (states and nationwide) just a couple of months ago. Judging by Obama's legislative record (more) and his campaign's performance, I'm rather inclined to believe that he'd fare better than either Clinton or McCain when it comes to implementing and promoting a cohesive agenda from the White House.
"Obama? How can you support an Illinois lawyer with only two years of experience in national office?
Oh, it worked out pretty well last time."
Williams: Let's talk about health care, an issue that currently ranks a solid second in virtually every opinion poll in the United States.So, I don't know what you mean. Can you point to what specifically you're talking about?
Senator Edwards, you have said you would raise taxes to pay for a health care plan. The question is: Which ones?
Edwards: I would get rid of George Bush's tax cuts for people who make over $200,000 a year. But I want to say, this is an example -- we've had a lot of discussion tonight -- not a great deal of discussion so far about the substance of the very specific ideas that each of us have on big issues.
I'm proud of the fact that I have a very specific universal health care plan which I think is different than some others on the stage who are running for president.
And I think we have a responsibility, if you want to be president of the United States, to tell the American people what it is you want to do.
Rhetoric's not enough. High-falutin' language is not enough. And my plan would require employers to cover all their employees or pay into a fund that covers the cracks in the health care system -- mental health parity, which others have spoken about; chronic care; preventative care; long-term care; subsidized health care costs.
Give people a choice, including a government choice; no pre- existing conditions -- banned as a matter of law. And the law actually requires that every single American be covered.
Williams: Senator, thank you.
Senator Obama, how would you pay for your plan?
Obama: Well, first of all, let me tell you what I would do.
Number one, I think we should have a national pool that people can buy into if they don't have health insurance, similar to the ones that most of us who are in Congress enjoy right now.
It doesn't make sense to me that my bosses, the taxpayers, may not have health insurance that I enjoy.
And we can provide subsidies for those who can't afford the group rates that are available.
The second thing I think that we're going to have to do is make sure that we control costs. We spend $2 trillion on health care in this country every year, 50 percent more than other industrialized nations. And yet, we don't have, necessarily, better outcomes.
This week, we saw a story that showed that black infant mortality in this country is actually going up in some states, which is shameful and makes no sense.
And if we make sure that we provide preventive care and medical technology that can eliminate bureaucracy and paperwork, that makes a big difference.
The third thing is catastrophic insurance to help businesses and families avoid the bankruptcies that we're experiencing all across the country and reduced premiums for families.
That's the kind of plan that I think we can accomplish, as long as we build the movements to actually make that change happen.
Williams: Senator, thank you.
Senator Clinton, you're perhaps more closely associated with this issue than anyone on this stage.
How would you pay for your plan?
Clinton: Well, let me start by saying that all of the ideas that you're going to hear about in this campaign are very important to get out to the public so that people can actually think about them, examine how they would affect their lives because I do have the experience of having put forth a plan, with many of the features that John and Barack just mentioned.
And people were enthusiastic about it initially, but then after the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies got finished working on it, everybody got nervous and so politically we were not successful.
Well, I'm ready to try again, and there's three things we've got to do. We've got to control and decrease costs for everyone. This is not just about the uninsured.
Yes, we have nearly 47 million, but we've got many millions more who have an insurance policy that they can barely afford and that they can't get the treatments they need under it. We have to cover everybody but we've got to improve quality.
We can save money within the existing system. I am not ready to put new money into a system that doesn't work until we've tried to figure out how to get the best outcomes from the money we already have.
TAKING office in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt confronted a country in crisis. Four in 10 working-age Americans were jobless. Banks were collapsing....I found this quite interesting, the first suggestion I've seen that avoiding policy details is a campaign strategy:
On March 4, Roosevelt gave his now famous inaugural address, promising that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Within days he had secured legislation guaranteeing the banks, and on March 12, he took to the radio for the first of his fireside chats...
When banks re-opened the next morning, the lines were gone... People put money back in, so much that on the first day after the chat, deposits outweighed withdrawals by $10 million.
It was the legislation, but mostly, Mr. Caro writes: “Their confidence was restored by his confidence. When he smiled on the crisis, it seemed to vanish.”
Would we call this a cult of personality?
Accounts of the campaign’s “Camp Obama” sessions, to train volunteers, have a revivalist flavor. Volunteers are urged to avoid talking about policy to potential voters, and instead tell of how they “came” to Mr. Obama.This is a really good piece, my favorite kind: an argument that references history, making comparisons with similar historic times and with leaders on both sides of the aisle, and it follows praise for oratorical skill with some cautions and criticisms about rhetoric alone (obviously) being not enough.
“If he does say so himself, Senator Barack Obama delivers a fine political speech.
‘Don’t be fooled by this talk about speeches versus solutions,’ Mr. Obama told a crowd of Wisconsin voters. ‘It’s true, I give a good speech. What do I do? Nothing wrong with that.’
To that confident strain of self-assessment, the audience roared with approval.
A shrug of the shoulders and a few deadpanned retorts, some of which stop just shy of mocking his rival, is the latest approach Mr. Obama has taken to respond to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s criticism that his words offer more poetry than substance.
Yet as he traveled across Wisconsin last week, Mr. Obama seemed to have let loose a little more of his inner-wonk, which his strategists had once urged him to keep on the shelf.
Even as he was dismissing Mrs. Clinton’s criticism, he appeared to be taking it at least mildly to heart — a suggestion that as a line of attack, she might be on to something.
Suddenly, he was injecting a few more specifics into his campaign speeches. Giant rallies that had sustained his candidacy through a coast-to-coast series of contests on Feb. 5, notable for their rhetorical flourishes and big applause lines, were supplemented with policy speeches and town-hall-style meetings, complete with the question-and-answer sessions he abandoned as he roared out of Iowa and into New Hampshire. (In hindsight, he conceded as he reviewed a defeat to Mrs. Clinton, that was a mistake.)
By every indication, this was not a random change in the Obama style. The senator decided to clue in his audience to the shift on a recent morning in Janesville, Wis., where he presented an economic proposal to create seven million jobs over the next decade.
‘Today, I want to take it down a notch,’ said Mr. Obama, of Illinois, standing on the floor of a General Motors plant. ‘This is going to be a speech that is a little more detailed. It’s going to be a little bit longer, with not too many applause lines.’” [more…]
RNC Chairman Duncan as well as Co-Chairman Jo Ann Davidson opened the Sunday session with a Power Point presentation outlining five main strategic attacks against the Obama candidacy...
The first called for pointing out what the GOP views as a seeming incongruity between Obama and the mantle of commander in chief. The second point harkened back to Obama’s days in the Illinois state Senate, noting how his “pattern of voting ‘present’ offers many openings to question his candidacy.” The third offered hope to the GOP faithful that “we can be confident in a campaign about issues.” A fourth bullet point relayed how “undisciplined messaging carries great risk,” while the fifth and final attack point stressed, “His greatest weakness is inexperience. He is not ready to be commander in chief. He is not ready to be president.”
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