Questions about Obama's "electability" never fail to raise our hackles and we go beserk in his defense. We feel an intense connection to his person and his message and disagree viscerally with his critics. I want to blog this, however, from my head rather than my heart - despite being ahead in delegates, Obama is still not winning significantly more than half of the electorate, and that's just the Democratic primary. If we really want him to win the White House, we have to face up to his weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and Obama has a little time from now till November to address them. He has to be unblinkered, objective and brutally honest in assessing himself and his opponents, both strengths and weaknesses. It means he has to win over those who have not voted for him, and who do not plan to. Not us. The ones who are concerned that rightly or wrongly, he doesn't love his country enough, that he may be an elite out-of-touch snob, that he is an inexperienced empty suit. That's been Hillary's fatal flaw - instead of wooing the Obama voters, her campaign insults, dimisses and derides them. It's her Achilles heel since the days of "Screw 'em!" to Southern Democratic voters who turned Republican. This is a mistake we must learn from - although we won't win over all the ones voting for Hillary or McCain, many are blinded beyond redemption (about 29% from the looks of Bush's approval ratings), we must win *enough* of them over. How can Obama win them over without pandering like a phony cardboard butter fingered bowler or Royal Crown-in-the-ass duck hunter? All those millions spent on ad blitzes that saturate and blanket airtime prove limited in their opinion-changing effectiveness. He has to remain authentic and truthful but it is time he talks about all these other things that the other half of America are concerned about. He certainly has to change his message, and if we care enough about sending him to the White House, we have to accept that his campaign might change its tone or direction. He has to prove himself to all these other groups by articulating his vision in a way that includes them. Someone as empathetic as him would be able to reach out and speak to them without condescension, that I'm assured of. I first thought of this because of a Peggy Noonan column blogged by PaDem: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/04/obama-and-america-is-there-a-p.php Let's be open-minded to constructive criticism and good advice about what the other half of the electorate think and feel. Instead of getting mad at Hillary, let's learn our lessons well from her. The ABC debate was a horrible debacle, but it served the function of exposing all the potential vulnerabilities to be addressed.

I saw a link to this article from Obama's Watchdogs' site about a reporter going undercover as a campaign volunteer in Philly. I'm convinced she'll move on to conquer mountains with such awe-inspiring presence, deft maneuvring, uplifting messages, sweeping organizational skills. Have a latte, enjoy! http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/04/17/i-was-a-clinton-volunteer

Yes, you. You who have done the math. You who have read the polls. You who have crowed about Hillary's debt and her money drying up. You who believe that no one dares overturn the electoral process. You who believe that it doesn't matter as long as a Democrat is in the White House. You who have blogged that it's over, Obama won. It's NOT over. The math didn't help when the George Bush beat Al Gore in Florida 2000. The polls didn't mean a damn thing when Kerry lost Ohio. The money will *never* dry up for Hillary because no ordinary person earns $109 million by writing a couple of boooks and giving speeches. And after all these months of seeing Hillary's true character, I hope you're not stupid enough to think that there isn't any discernible difference between the two presidential candidates. Hillary is counting on all the chilled-out Obama supporters like you who believe that he'll sail into the Convention and onto November on the back of pledged delegates, Youtube videos and 35,000 people rallies. Wake up. The Clintons are fighting for their lives - the ones who gave them all these hundreds of millions of $$$ knew they have their backs. Knives will be out for them should they fail to deliver the White House to them. Think Whitewater, cattle futures, the Telecoms Act, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, Hillary's voting for the bankruptcy laws, Chelsea working for hedge funds. Money drives the Clintons, as it does the Bushes. Their life-long friend Robert Reich, offered in a telling quip: Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who first introduced the couple at Yale but who has been disillusioned with them for some time, is one of several former associates who described their current circle as mostly money people: "The world for them tends to be divided between those who are useful to them, financially or politically or both, and those who aren't. So many of their friends are accordingly very wealthy, and they associate informally with a fairly wide circle of extremely wealthy people." http://www.slate.com/id/2188751/pagenum/2 That's what you get with dynastic families - the succession ensures that vital interests and stakes of their elite friends are preserved. We have no idea what we're up against. It's going to get much, much uglier. If you don't fight for the democratic process now, we might as well "chill" and wait for another 8 years. That's what we latte drinkers are good at, "chill", or we can go out there and make our voices heard.