Obama's problem(s)

Update: Just found this interesting piece of footage from the Fox News focus group. Seriously, get Obama against Hillary one-on-one. I want to see what happens...



I just watched the "historical" (according to CNN) youtube presidential debate. Before I get to Obama, I just want to say a few questions about the debate itself. I thought the format was great. Stooge Cooper served as moderator but rather than direct the questions to the candidates himself (other than a few follow-up questions when candidates evaded answering), the questions were asked by "regular" Americans in 30 second self-recorded youtube videos. It was fun to watch and a pleasant change of pace from the usual monotonous (i.e. boring) debates put on by the media. I hope this format sticks because I'd definitely tune in. In fact, I'm planning on submitting my own video for the Republican youtube debate. I'll have to craft a good question...

Now, to Obama and his performance. Contrary to what the media is spinning at this very minute, there was no big smackdown (Drudge is mocking the debate with the soon to be infamous "snowman video" and a pic of Obama and Hillary labeled "clash", and the first thing CNN did when the debate was over was try to frame the entire thing as a war between the two top contenders). If you watched the entire debate in context a couple things stood out. First is that Obama got the biggest applause on almost everything he spoke to any length on. In fact, immediately after the debate, CNN's pundits were clearly saying Hillary "won" the debate, only to switch to a focus group that "surprisingly!" gave the nod to Obama. Who "wins" a primary debate, especially one with such a large amount of contenders in it, is meaningless at this stage of the game. The only time you can really judge whether or not somebody "wins" a debate is when they square off against each other and have adequate time to respond to each other. But what is important in these debates is how the candidate comes off to the viewers, how they respond to the questions, and whether or not they distinguish themselves as "presidential material".

This was the first "officially sanctioned" democratic debate, which is retarded when you think about it (what, I'm just supposed to ignore the non-sanctioned debates?). I'm a big supporter of Barack Obama, and his previous debate performances left much to be desired. He has a bad tendency to pause a lot, stumble over some of his words, and use the dreaded "Ummm...." which is a killer in public speaking. I don't necessarily think this is a negative attribute. It seems to me that Obama can't quite get that "populist" language down pat. It's almost like he's trying to hard to think of how to phrase his answer while he's giving it, and that makes him look, frankly, unprepared. There's no denying the guy has massive chops when he has a prepared script in front of him and can fully articulate his message in order to deliver it in the best way possible. It's just those "on the spot, need an answer now!" questions that debates are formatted for that really hurt him. The guy speaks articulately, but it takes him a looooonnggg time to get his words out (which, to be fair, he has admitted). With this debate, you can tell he's been coached up quite a bit. You can tell he's been honestly striving to be better. That's not to say that the same problems didn't crop up in this debate, only that this time he was more focused with his delivery.

Obama's main problem is Hillary Clinton. We all know Hillary is dominating in the polls, but people forget that Hillary is being coached by one of the best political speakers of the 20th century, Bill Clinton. This was evident during a montage of health care questions submitted to the candidates and Hillary addressed each of submitters by name and their respective disease before answering the question. This is textbook Bill Clinton. Address the voter as an individual, make them feel an immediate rapport by using their name and problem. In other words, talk directly to them and show pathos. It's not that Obama doesn't do this, it's that he can't do it like Bill Clinton. Arguably, that's how Bill won his election. Elections are won on speech and how you present it. Obama needs to compete with Hillary on this.

The other problem is that Obama has shown very little inclination to actually attack Hillary on issues. A couple weeks back, there was a big uproar about John Edwards and Hillary discussing paring down the debates to include fewer candidates. I am completely for that. Everybody knows, the democratic primary is going to be decided between Hillary and Barack. Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel have no shot to win this thing. Do I think they should be banned from the debates? Of course not. I love when the both of them rile up the top contenders. It's good to have people like that in the process. However, there comes a point when the democratic primary voters have to say "um, ok, it's getting down to crunch time now, we need to see Barack and Hillary and find out how the do against each other". If Kucinich and the others can show they have the popular support in polls and money to really compete with Barack and Hillary, then by all means, put them in the later debates. But when it becomes clear that Chris Dodd is at 1% in the polls, and the primaries begin in a month, I want that question on health care or Iraq to go to the front runners who will actually be the nominee. So, let the contenders get in on the early debates, then start trimming it until you've got the front runners (by the way, Edwards is not a front runner. There is no chance in hell of him getting the nomination).

And this is directly Obama's problem. It's established that he's a guy that needs the extra 60 seconds to really get his message out. You can't really engage Hillary when questions are so random and going to so many different candidates. By its very nature, these debates don't give response time to the candidates. I want to see Obama vs. Hillary one on one.

Gotta go, time for a Splattercast