I've been supporting Obama since early 2007 and for the first time I feel like putting him in a room and screaming "stay on message!" Even at his worst during the primary he barely even faltered in style here and there. But now he sounds like Clinton during her darkest days -- a new message everyday, lacking clarity, letting the other guy get away with the story of the day.

It cracks me up that after his great overseas trip, McCain started calling him a prima madonna celebrity. What's Obama do? He stops being one. Hey, Obama, own it. You are a celebrity -- and we're ready for someone bigger than life after someone smaller than an ugly frog.

Obama--screw being defensive and start pounding the Democratic message home. Given the wrong track numbers at 80% you would think all you would have to do is repeat the mantra --"let's get back on track." This is the theme he started the general with -- nailing McCain to the "third Bush term" slogan. Now he spends his time lamenting and back down.

He also has to adjust to being a Democrat's Democrat -- selling the message and non himself. He gets in trouble when he overthinks and becomes enamored with his own reasoning and insight.

That works for me, but it is apparently death to the voters he needs now. It's all about getting past the eight disastrous Bush years and getting bus back out of the ditch and speeding on down the road. That's your message: following me down a new path!

This convention has to work or he might have lost by the time the debates roll around. The convention has to be forward looking -- specific, repeated messages about how the Obama administration is going to prepare us for the prosperity, security, and imagination of our children's futures.

There is a real opening for Obama to ignore the old man in the baggy pants telling old war stories, and to transcend the negative campaign with tough, clear, unequivocating messages about getting back on track.

Biden will help because he is no nonsence and will play the game. He'll be so excited he'll wet his pants before he tears down McCain and builds the Democratic vision.

I hope the message has already been drawn up. I hope what we've seen these past several weeks is about to change. I hope Obama's advisers are giving him some high energy pills.

AND IT HOPE THEY STAY ON MESSAGE THROUGH NOVEMBER 4!

you better be scared. him, his america hating wife, terrorist friends, hate spewing preacher, and DNC big wig puppet masters are in for a shock. mccain has his number and the debates are not going to be pretty for you guys if the other night is any indication. barry tends to have running mouth syndrome. he runs off at the yap until he thinks he has something to say.

he's trying to impress the big wigs in the DNC and it is not working. keep it short barry. you really ain't that nuanced no matter what the fawning ass kissers are telling you.

biden will not be the guy. he spends too much time at sears automotive getting his hair plugs rotated.

If he goes with Bidden how does he keep up his claim to be the agent of change and DC experience is the wrong kind of experience. I guess his followers are not troubled by hypocrisy

It's his to lose, but that doesn't mean he won't. :-|

The problem for Obama is that what worked in the primaries very rarely works in the general election, where everything he says and does will be nitpicked over within an inch of his life. He was able to get away with great speaches and vague generalities about what he would do in office, but this is the time that the rubber hits the road. People are all for change, but they want to know exactly what kind of change he plans to impliment.

In the general election, he has to start spelling out very clearly what his policy plans would be, and allow the media and the public to look at his plans and compare them side by side with McCain's plans. He will need to prove that his relative lack of experience in national politics and international affairs does not mean that he doesn't have a grasp or what is happening and solid ideas for fixing the problems that he faces. He has to communicate these specifics clearly and have the facts behind him to back up his ideas.

In the coming months, he will have to face McCain in several debates and really lay his plans out for all to see. Debates have always been Obama's weak points because they do demand specifics. He knows that he is better when he can make an inspiring speach, but when it comes to working out specific policy ideas, he falls a bit short and he's very aware of this. If he fails to give specifics that work, he will come across as naieve or callow and play into the hands of those who are arguing that he doesn't have the experience or skill to be president. There are a lot of people out there who are skeptical that Obama is ready to be president, even within the Democratic party - these are the voters that he needs to convince that he is ready if he wants to win.

The convention is really the last time when Obama is going to have the stage all to himself and make the kind of speaches that he likes to a receptive audience and media. After that, it's going to be hard slogging and we saw in the primaries that he has little appetite for that. He's going to find himself answering the same questions over and over again, have his big ideas picked apart and criticized. However difficult the primaries were, the general election is much worse. He's got to make an appeal to those voters in the middle who could go either way, something that his more zealous followers might have a hard time swallowing.

People are starting to notice that despite the increasing unpopularity of the current president and the Republican party as a whole, despite that it looks like there will be a solid Democrat majority in the House and Senate come November, that Obama and McCain are nearly tied nationally in the polls. One would think that with all the facts on the ground that Obama would be way ahead of McCain in the polls, but since winning the primary, Obama has lost ground. McCain may have been weak for awhile but he is coming back in the national polls. This is not good news for Obama and he did himself no favors by changing his tune on some very important issues (like FISA).

Unfortunately for Obama, just talking about "change" is no longer going to cut it. How he must specifiy what the change will be and how he plans to go about implimenting it, and be prepared for the fallout.

'He knows that he is better when he can make an inspiring speach, but when it comes to working out specific policy ideas, he falls a bit short and he's very aware of this.'

that's what i said. you were just a lot nicer than i was.

mccain has his number and the debates are not going to be pretty for you guys

Ah, the debates. Anyone care to place a wager on the number of times McCain will say he's going to "follow Bin Ladin to the gates of hell" followed by that mildly disturbing grin of his?

Sadly, irv is right in a way. There are millions of half-wit americans who eat those meaningless one-liners up with a spoon.

Yawn. Obama is so far ahead that he can just coast until November if he wanted to.

All he has to do is bodysurf with a big grin on his face while old man McCain drowns in his own filth. Obama's momentum is unbeatable and it will carry him to the White House no matter what anyone says or does between now and election day.

The media loves a close race but after the Olympics there won't be any more close races this year.

ravnwing:

The problem for Obama is that what worked in the primaries very rarely works in the general election...

I disagree. I think the very thing that worked in the primaries against Hillary will work against McSame in the general, to wit, you can vote for the same old, same old or you can vote for change. The "experience" versus "change" contrast didn't work for Hillary, and it won't work for McSame, particularly since he *really* represents the antithesis of change as Bush's clone on the two most important issues facing this country, i.e. the war in Iraq and the economy.

John Adkisson, I totally agree.

And as for you Irvingchang... we've put up with a lot of your drivel for a long time, but now you've gone too far. How dare you insult Joe Biden's hair!? Those silvertoned locks of freedom waft in the breeze of patriotism.

Hell, his hair is the main reason he should be VP.

it'll be the chick i think. they want the trump victim ticket. ebony and ovary.

mccain is going to get the mittster or bobby jindal. i hope it's not that ass kissing doofus charlie crist.

the mittster has the hair too. good mormon hair sans the plugs.

I so hope he chooses 'the mittster'. If he does, stick a fork in him he's done. That guy's a total flip-flopper, even worse than O'bama has been lately.

i'm hoping it's bobby jindal. he is one sharp cookie. i can't stand charlie crist. he gives me the creeps the same way edwards gives me the creeps. and i voted for him! yikes!! see what you democrats made me do?

i miss old jeb.