As I said, my first choice is Biden. But beyond that is my determination that we win. And that may, I said may, require the excitement -- the big bump -- that would be produced by the picture of these two fighters joining hands and joining forces. They looked amazing in Unity, New Hampshire. Maybe that show needs to go national.
If Obama's not exciting enough, then what good is he? He can't run on his record, because he doesn't have one. (He's the anti-Nixon.) The truth is that his political survival requires that he surround himself with a protective aura of positive buzz. The problem is that he's not brand-new anymore. He's new (anybody's new compared to McCain!) but he's not brand-new. From now on, positive buzz about Obama will have to be manufactured. (I doubt he'll ever again get 200,000 Germans to listen to him speak, unless he actually does something.)
People don't necessarily object to being manipulated by politicians--or movie studios or advertisers or sports teams--but they're not going to buy what they don't think they need. We know from the primaries that Obama doesn't wear well. It wasn't just that Clinton got stronger. Obama himself seemed to evaporate upon exposure to real people and real problems. An essential phoniness came through.
It's no surprise that Obama's trip abroad isn't giving him a bounce in the polls. It's such an obvious photo-op extravaganza that it merely reinforces what makes voters uneasy about him in the first place. The powder-puff press coverage--complete with a full body massage by Brian Williams on the Nightly News--isn't helping. Everybody knows that unless Obama acts like Chevy Chase in European Vacation, the media is going to make him president-in-waiting. The whole thing has all the credibility of professional wrestling.
M. J. Rosenberg is as doctrinaire an Obamabot--and Clinton-hater--as you'll find in the blogosphere. If he's sending out an SOS to Hillary, you know they're scared.
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