There are only two ways to lead people. Example and encouragement. Everything else is coercion, not leadership. A Presidential candidate can persuade, frighten, bribe, etc. but Leading people is different.

The dangers facing all of us now are not abstract concepts like Communism or even terrorism. They are pressing, personal dangers, that are much closer to home. We are living in a time when we can watch our leaders let an entire American city die right in front of our eyes on television. Twenty years ago, no matter who was President, would we have just let the people of New Orleans fend for themselves? Three years on would the city still be in the shape it is now? Our response to 9/11? Make war on the wrong country and continue funding fantastically expensive nuclear submarines and letting the military industrial complex run amok. To protect us how? This goes way beyond the failed presidency of George Bush. This is living proof of how incompetent and weak we are. How sick and vulnerable our society is. As well as protection from those who would blow us up for crazy religious reasons or run us out of business, Americans now need protection from other Americans who would deny us access to health care, poison us, steal our money, our jobs, and our homes. Your chances of Al Qaeda blowing you up are nothing compared to the chances of losing your health or your house or your life's savings in America today. Not all terrorists carry guns. Witness the effects on all Americans caused by recent speculation in the oil futures market. The sheer number of ways in which our government neglects us and sells us out to predatory corporations is staggering. Americans know this country is broken, perhaps permanently, in ways they have never experienced before. Broken far worse than the media or our institutions tell us because they are also part of the problem. The media, no longer a government watchdog or source of independent information, is the entertainment arm of the same predatory corporations that feed on us. And the public sees this. To them it's just another protection gone. And Obama sees this, gets it, and is responding to it in ways that McCain is unable and unwilling to. You would think he should win, even given the amount of racism still present in America. But just like Dukakis, Gore and Kerry before him, Obama is selling the wrong thing. Obama is selling "change" and "belief in ourselves". Well that's pretty thin gruel. And worse, it's not what the public is buying.

The American people are buying protection in 2008. Not because they want to, but because they need it. I'm not talking about protection from another terrorist attack, everyone's selling that. I mean actual, real, physical protection. Health care is up-close and personal. Your home is personal. Your job is personal. If Don Corleone was running he'd win in a cakewalk. The next President is going to have to really kick some ass. And mostly American ass at that. And not in the fake tough guy way that Bush demonstrated. Does anyone think the richest and most powerful American corporations will respond to an inspiring speech and a well crafted argument? Strength of character is paramount now. McCain is certainly vulnerable on that count, having sold all principle in his dash for power, but the maverick bullshit is an easy line to sell and is probably unassailable at this point. Obama must therefor appear in no uncertain terms to be the more powerful man. Not just an inspiring speaker but a real leader. Someone who can threaten his enemies if they won't go along with him. Make them pay a price. This applies mostly to members of his own party. Our plight requires nothing less than the utmost personal courage from our next President. And the public is not seeing that in Obama. And in the only way the public can judge these things, they're right. He won't win because he doesn't demonstrate, and most importantly, exemplify, the essential quality that is most called for in this crisis: Bravery.

Courage isn't the first virtue for nothing, everything else rests on it. I am not saying Barack Obama does not have courage. I'm just saying I haven't seen it. And I can't believe it until I see it. You can talk all you want about having the courage to stand up to special interests or your own party or anything else for that matter, but courage is way too important to take anyone else‘s word for. People only know it when they see it. Of course it's not the only quality we need in our President right now, but is it by far the most important, the quality without which we're sunk as a nation and the public knows it. To protect them the President doesn't have to be smart, he can hire that. He doesn't have to be likable, loyal, or honest all the time, just occasionally will do. But he does need to be brave, it's the one thing he can't outsource. And like it or not, the only way the public can judge Obama's courage in this ridiculous Kabuki called a campaign is for him to actually display a kind of personal bravery that is recognizable to all. John McCain is not only his opponent in the race but a stand-in for all the problems we face. How will our champion perform? Will Obama be a strong and hence, effective leader? We don't know. All we really know is what we see. And what we get to faintly see (on television) is which of the candidates is weakest. Not strongest. These campaigns are so controlled and fundamentally phony that an opportunity to show the kind of strength that would effectively translate to TV is rare. But on TV weakness shows right away. And that's what's been determining elections for the Presidency since the advent of TV. The one who blinks first loses. The one who sweats too much loses. The intellectual always loses. We don't vote "for" anyone, we always vote "against" someone. After all, out of 300 million Americans we get to choose between two. Two out of 300 million. And not scholars or wise elders or, with the exception of an occasional Dwight Eisenhower, anyone who's ever done much in the real world except get elected. They're politicians. Men and women who have a profession like mine; advertising. One that exploits real human needs with fantasies and diversion. At least if there were 3 or more you could vote "for" someone. But in a 2 man race for the most powerful office in the world it's only common sense to choose the lesser of two evils. And that's what we do. Presidents are elected by the failure of their oppenent, not positively, by reason of their own virtues.

When the McCain campaign came up with the phony "Pig/Lipstick" charge the other day Obama responded with an exasperated, slightly professorial, very measured, "Enough". Wrong response. This was a personal attack, not a political attack to paint Obama as a sexist or steer his campaign off message for two or three news cycles. The subject was irrelevant. It was a deliberate slap in Obama's face in public. A personal insult. And I don't know if Obama knows it. When he chose to respond by saying he expects their personal attacks and that doesn't bother him and that the ones who lose are you the voters, well that's just the wrong response. That's what Democrats always say. And in TV land, that comes across as weakness. That fatal weakness that elects the other guy. Even kids know that approach doesn't work. You can't get rid of the bully that way. Just like the kid in the schoolyard you must stand your ground and by whatever means necessary make the bullying stop. For the kid, if a fist fight is your last resort you must be prepared to take that step or expect the bullying to continue and be humiliated in public. Naturally we expect our leaders to have more sophisticated responses, but they must still in the end be effective. You must still make the bullying stop. It was no accident that the next day McCain's people ran an even more outrageous spot about Obama favoring sex education for kindergarden kids. Harder slap. What are you gonna do about it?

Karl Rove knows it doesn't matter if it's a lie or not. That's irrelevant. All that matters is that like Bill O'Reilly, you treat your opponent with contempt. You can score all the debating points you like but if he's sneering at you all the while, treating you like a doormat, you lose. You're weak. You've won the battle and lost the war. How can a weak man aspire to the most powerful job in the world?  The appropriate response is to:

1. Recognize the threat for what it is, an attempt to personally humiliate you, thereby proving your weakness, and emotionally respond appropriately. Make sure that your audience knows that you know that it is personal and you're not going to let it stand. Otherwise they think you're a phony or a wimp. Disdain, reasonableness or some form of superiority is all wrong, anger is the human response to a slap in the face. Remember how Bill Clinton spoke after the Oklahoma bombing? He wasn't the most popular guy right then, but when he showed genuine anger and pain and determination to get those responsible, we all soared and so did his popularity.

2. Confront the bully. You must move through him, not around him. How you do it is up to you, but your audience must see you taking the fight to your opponent. One obvious way would have been to return fire with "John McCain, yesterday your campaign deliberately and knowingly lied about me. I'm assuming that this bald-faced lie came from a campaign staffer and not you personally. As your campaign has challenged my personal integrity, I now challenge you to accept personal responsibility for this commercial. If it was an overzealous staffer I understand and do not expect a personal apology. But I do expect, as a man of honor, that if this is what you truly think, I will hear it from your own mouth. I and the American people await you answer."

3. Either way McCain answers or doesn't answer, you win. If he macho's up and says yeah, I'm calling you a scoundrel or the like, that's easy to attack because his charge was baseless. If he mumbles a weak answer such as he did on "The View" you don't let him off the hook, you press harder. "John McCain, you said I should choose my words more carefully and that I still owed Sarah Palin an apology. I don't because the commercial is false. And you didn't answer my question. Your campaign says I'm a sexist and that I want to teach kindergarden kids all about sex. That's trash and you know it. I expect more from you than that and so do the American people. So again sir, I'm still waiting for you to say those words yourself and not hide behind an anonymous announcer's voice or else admit your staff's error and take responsibility for it." No matter how he responds further you've won the real battle. You've already made this thing about him and won by standing up to the bully. You eloquently said it's time for them to own their mistakes. You have to make them do it, they're not going to do it because you asked.

4. You must be willing to take a beating if necessary. Even if a bully bests you he won't do it again. That's not what bullies are about. The bully needs to dominate and humiliate. If you fight him where he stands, then he has neither dominated nor humiliated you. Only beat you up and shown his true character and you have shown yours. 

The Republicans use this tactic because it works. From the Canuck Letter to Willie Horton to Fuzzy Math to Swift-Boating, all of these things are not about what they purport to be. They're public humiliations. And serious business. The Presidency is about one thing only, power. The Republicans are willing to fight to the death to hold it and count on the Democrats not having the stomach for a fight. The reason Republican lies and hypocracies never seem to matter to the public is that they don't. All they want is the strongest of the two. Which makes sense given what the Presidency is. Can the President fix our miserable economy? No. International financiers control that, not him. He can help it or hurt it but he can't fix it. He doesn't have the power. Can he (or she) save us from the environmental destruction we are hurtling toward? Help yes. Save no. Again, not enough power. Can he deliver even close to the health care the rest of the world enjoys? Not by himself. What he does have the power to do is protect us from internal or external threats, physical and economic (and economic protection these days means protection from the fear of starvation, again a form of physical protection). The only thing that matters to the public is who's bravest, therefore strongest, therefore the only one with even a ghost of a chance of giving us the protection we need.

Mr. Obama, the American people want to follow you. They want you to be strong because they need a strong leader so bad. You give a very good speech. And you've got the encouragement part down, but you're failing the example part. You must show real personal courage. As a leader, you must model the qualities you're trying to call forth. You must put others welfare above your own. If it means the forfeit of your political career in order to do the right thing, so be it. You chose this role. You are getting closer to being a real leader but even closer to losing this election because you're treating your opponent like Democrats have always treated their opponents. And that's not change I can believe in.