E.J. Dionne assures panicky Democrats that the worst is behind them. Barack Obama can develop empathy, craft a compelling economic message, avoid the success of the surge, and get everyone to focus on the initial decision to support the war (unless of course Joe Biden or Evan Bayh is the VP). So provided Obama can change his personality and his message (and that McCain doesn’t do anything for the next few months) everything will be perfectly fine. Yeah.

Let’s begin by noting that what was so attractive about Obama to pundits–his cool, his reserve, and his intellect–are now liabilities. Let’s further note that the implication of the “get back to the Iraq war vote” is that Obama (and all of the liberal punditocracy) blew it on the surge–the biggest real national security issue he faced in the Senate. And then let’s not forget that he hasn’t done anything to convince voters in key states that he understands them or can do much of anything for him. How quickly the bloom comes off the rose.

But Dionne is right about one thing. In a political fantasy world in which McCain doesn’t appear (e.g. doesn’t take command on energy policy or the Georgia crisis) Obama does much better. But both Obama and his fans ignore McCain at their peril. He’s actually turned out to be pretty solid on policy and extremely impressive on strategy. So rather than reinvent the Chosen One (reminds me of that musical: “I Love You,You’re Perfect, Now Change”), perhaps they might stop discounting their opposition.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 8:13 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.