Obama needs to change his strategy: When's the last time America Has Accomplished Something Awe Inspiring?

The election has now veered onto the paths of the '04 and '00 campaigns. Obama is now in the trench McCain wants him to be in, wiping mud from his brow and flinging a little back at McCain. McCain has finally been effective (I'm agreeing with the writer from today's Time's article about McCain going for people's emotions) against the Obama campaign. Obama hasn't pulled at the nation's heart strings for a long time. He hasn't done so since McCain accused his campaign of lacking any specifics. Since then Obama has been laying out the fine print since, most noticeably in his acceptance speech. Interest in him from the media has waned. He's not been as exciting.

He needs to re-incorporate the positive, emotionally uplifting and hopeful tone to his speeches. But he just can't go back to "the speech". While it's still great for the voters already committed, saying the same old speech again isn't going to sway those on the fence. He needs to bust out with something new.

I'm going to just stipulate as fact for the sake of my next point that the race has devolved into emotional appeals from McCain/Palin and now defense from Obama. If you believe the Time article I referenced in the last paragraph is bogus, you might want to stop here.

Still with me? O.K. Now, if you have watched the speeches given by Palin that it's a co-opted version of Obama's messages. What made me mad this morning was Palin's speech after the whole bank thing was announced. She repeated the same old b.s. about the bridge to nowhere and the jet. But I think she was effective because she called out the bankers and congratulated the government for not bailing out the bank. Obama needs to point out the new Palin (since she's the only person talking that gets news coverage now) messages are the exact same things he's said months ago in the campaign. He also needs to put out there the fact that the McCain campaign is flipping the ticket and in essence running Palin (unassailable because she's a woman, has the press following her around) against Obama. He needs to point out that the only reason they're are now speaking these messages is because their previous messages didn't work. In addition he needs to call out McCain to speak for himself and in a subtle fashion point out that this makes McCain weak, unlike other "strong" (I don't personally believe in this crap) Republicans like Reagan who wouldn't do such a thing.

Honestly, this campaign McCain is running, while effective at the moment, is ridiculous. McCain is campaigning from underneath Palin's skirt. Or if you like Wizard of Oz metaphors he's talking through Palin from the back of the room and once Toto pulls back the screen he speaks through the mic to tell everyone to ignore the little old man behind the screen. Fact is everyone knew the little old man was in the room and had long ago ignored him, so he had to construct this fearful and loud image to speak through to gain people's awe and respect...I'm digressing...

Even that isn't enough. Obama needs to go bigger. He's got to go beyond what he's articulated as hope in "the speech". He needs to ask America to think about when's the last time America has been in awe of an American accomplishment? He then needs to propose a radical change...more like a radical goal and throw that bombshell on the people with a 'yes we can' I guess at the end to re-remind people of the original and still great message of his campaign. Change. Hope. Something that can excite voters of most demographics.

What would this idea be? I don't know. How would he lay this out in terms of the media? I am kinda leaning towards and apple marketing strategy. Not the apple ads with pc and mac type strategy. The type of marketing strategy where you leak a rumor of a "big" idea that will be revealed at a future date. It creates buzz and people start wondering what the hell it is like a Christmas present and then everyone is listening a week or two when the "it" is revealed.

What would it be? Something that everyone can agree would be exciting for the American people to accomplish. It's got to have a bit of practical purpose, but maybe the idea of re-establishing America's dominance through whatever it is could be viewed as acceptable. It's got to be a 5-10 project. It's got to be awe inspiring. As jaded as we Americans are I find such a thing as hard to really imagine myself, but I'm not that smart of a guy. My creatively limited mind can only think of a more aggressive space program but that would draw a lot of criticism because of it's lack of practicality. Maybe it would fly with the public if there were some twist to it.

Obama probably still wins because the election still boils down to war or no war and I think that is still a deal breaker for a lot of poeple, but I think a comeback strategy of this nature shuts the door on McCain and belittles his messages without having to say negative things to do it. I don't know the words for it but it's just thinking on a higher level than McCain's campaign has outlined or prepared for from the other side.

This probably doesn't happen. I just got kinda sad at the discourse, but more sad that the Obama campaign seems to be sputtering a bit while Palin goes up and makes the same untruthful speech over and over and over to cheers. I guess my point is to stop the attacks on Palin. Ignore her. Challenge/Call out McCain to talk for himself and see how that's received by voters.

I think that's all I've got to say about that.