Obama's Not Specific Enough? Gimme a Break

I am truly surprised by the number of my otherwise well-informed friends who support Obama, who still say, Barack Obama really needs to get more specific with his policies. People really don't know where he stands. I don't know if they haven't been paying attention, if the press just doesn't cover the substance of what the candidates are doing, or if town halls or political speeches just aren't the right place to communicate specificity.

But it's true that people don't know the details - less than 10% of the electorate can probably tell you much about Obama's policies -- that Obama has a tax policy plan on his website that outlines, to mind-blowing degree, his proposals for tax reform or that he has a Blueprint for Change that is 59 pages long that outlines details about 15 or more of his policies on education, the environment, health care, etc. How many people know that Obama's tax proposals would produce $900 a year in net savings for the middle class while McCain's would produce on average $200? Even the most well informed can succumb to the trite pronouncements by radio and TV so-called pundits that he is all charisma and no substance.

Whose fault is this? Is Obama really not being specific? His website has more policy information than the most rabid policy wonk would want to know at this point. Is it his fault for not communicating it more effectively? I don't think so. He has tried. Obama has given at least 5 major speeches that I know of, carried by major networks, on topics such as race, energy, education, the economy, and relations with Israel. Those speeches were filled with specific ideas and the transcripts were available on his website immediately after he gave them.

Perhaps it is the media's fault? After all, if you only watch CNN or the evening news, you would think that all that is happening on the campaign trail is embarrassing gaffes or attack ads being replayed in the guise of "analysis." But who would listen to CNN or the evening news if they reported policy details? Would you? What is the audience for PBS or C-Span? Not even close to Anderson 360.

Maybe we are not interested in learning this stuff, or maybe TV is just the wrong medium for transmitting serious information. As wacky as he was, Marshall McLuhan of The Medium is the Message ( who died in 1980 long before cable TV), understood the limitations of TV better than anyone. In his words, At the speed of light, policies and political parties yield place to charismatic images. Maybe it's not the message at all. It's just the wrong medium?

Today's New York Times Magazine has an article by David Leonhardt How Obama Reconciles Dueling Views on the Economy . But article is long and complex and requires time and thought to absorb. It would not communicate well on television.

So what's the solution? If the candidates are being specific but we don't perceive it that way, what should we do? Is there any chance people will read the stuff on the websites and do some research? Probably not. Should the candidates insist on giving long, sometimes boring answers to simple questions or are most voters happy with the one word answers that McCain gave at Saddleback? Is complaining about the lack of specificity in Obama's speeches a trap that McCain has successfully set?

It seems hypocritical to complain about a lack of specificity if you are not willing to do the work to find the answers. Yet that's where we are at this point - 19 months later, dozens of debates and town halls on both sides - and we still hear our friends saying they don't know what Obama stands for? Pay attention people! Either pay attention or don't complain.

Comments

[BHJensen]

"pay attention or don't complain?"...C'mon Doc, you know that's not what we have been hasslin' you about.....you are preaching to the choir - we ALL read those 59 page position papers and it makes us feel good about the choice we have already made.

What scares me is how, and when, he will connect with the people who won't pay attention until at least after Labor Day and probably not even then. 59 page position papers are not going to educate the few percentage points that will ultimately elect him....."campaign in poetry, govern in prose".....Yes We Can needs some more stanzas....

[Linda Bergthold - Huffpost Blogger]

Jensen you are so right. Several people have contacted the campaign about ways to link "sound bites" to the more in-depth policy papers. But then, won't people say he's too superficial? Feels like he's damned if he does or doesn't -- he gets specific, people tell him he's getting too wonky. Stays high level then he's not specific enough. I just think that TV coverage is not where you learn about a candidate. Not even from debates really. Part of Obama's problem is that the "rap" on him has already hardened in the minds of so many that the facts may now have no impact at all. We'll have to depend on his get out the vote organization to win this one.

[emcd]

The Obama policy problem is right in the 2nd paragraph! The Blueprint for change is 59 pages long! When is the last time most people read ANYTHING that is 59 pages long? The campaign needs to condense that 59 pages into soundbites that are short enough to make the evening news and be easily understood by the low information voters!

[PAposter]

This is what Jason Linkins (HuffPo Blogger) had to say about Washington Post Columnist, Richard Cohen on this same subject.

"At what point does Cohen's failure to know Obama cease to be the candidate's fault and come to be properly seen as a function of a columnist's utter laziness?"

That's a really good question, and I pose that same question to every voter who claims they don't know much about Obama.

[max08]

It's the media. John Meacham this morning on MSNBC slapped down Buchanan for calling Obama The Kid. Rightfully so. And Buchanan was chastened; after all, this was the editor of Newsweek telling him to cut it out.

Would they have called Biden The Kid when he ran for Prez in 1988 at the same age Obama is now? No.

This is all closet racism. As a white person and older, I am getting EFFING FED UP WITH THIS.

We all know the RJC is rabidly against Obama. But for the media to fall into this mode, it's exasperating.

[PAposter]

I saw that too, someone needed to tell Buchanan that he was being condescending. And I too, am fed up with this weak @ss talking point, that is not true.

[DCX2]

Obama should plug his web site. He should give a few tasty specifics, and then say "for further information, you can see all of my policies in excruciating detail on my web site."

[stoneworks]

AMEN!!!!!!!
I've heard that same tired excuse many times.
Next time I hear someone say they don't know enough about Obama, I'm going to ask them a) where do you get your information? b) have you tried to inform yourself, or do you get all your knowledge from your TV set , and c) are you just parrotting a line you heard someone else say?
I'm so sick and tired of Americans behaving like cattle when it comes to making important decisions.
Wake up people!!!

[dkuz09]

cOULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER!!!

I also took the time to read the David Leonhardt article ( I must admit, I'm a slow reader when it comes to economics and the ilk, it took me three days just to get through it , but I DID!!) and I was so enamored by it that I actually wrote to Obama through his website, don't know if they'll even read it, but I wanted to let them know that even if they lifted even a paragraph from Leonhardt's article where it details the clear and stark differences between obama and mccain's economic plan, they will have made their specifics KNOWN. But I do agree, these people want that information SPOON FED to them, which is why Bush and his administration won a second time around when no one thought it was possible!

[Tobiasism]

True, the MSM and the 'Pundits" just want to play this uninformed lemming run at "emptysuitdom" for reasons I can only imaagine.
The Obama website has policies in excruciating detail.
However, people are so incredibly lazy that they need a 10 word soundbite to inform them.

[galinha]

"I don't know if they haven't been paying attention"
My point exactly. I really don't know what people want Obama to say after outlining specific policy details so much. I guess its just a case of somehow finding fault with him as usual, no matter what he does and no matter how hard he tries.

[gladys46]

Your friends & MSM have all read, listened to and observed Obama's articulated, explicit policies for almost a year now!!!

What MSM pundits and possibly your friends won't say is that they can't get beyond Obama's skin color ... period!

[ProudLiberalDan]

While Obama is specific, his campaign is still relying on bromides about "new politics". Only a tiny number of people in the country see "new politics" as the top priority.

If he wants to actually win he needs to make his campaign about more than "new politics", but about "new policies". Right now, those specifics are not coming through to the general public -- most of whom will not do any research to either candidates actual policies.

[BeltwayBette]

To those pledging to vote McCain. This is what you"re voting FOR.

Higher deficits for US; more debt to China
Lower minimum wage
Less pay, less safety for the worker, greater wealth for the rich
No incentives for jobs to be in the U.S.
No Social Security benefits?

No habeus corpus, no protection from illegal incarceration of American Citizens, kidnapping/ torture, increased loss of personal privacy, more prisons, more Constitution raping.

Women will have no rights,Taliban style. We will have lower pay for equal work, no Roe vs. Wade, no legal contraceptives, no child care outside the home. Women will again die horribly from illegal abortions. More newborns will be murdered.

Crime will increase as criminal cartels take control of contraceptive sales. And the starving steal, mug, or burglarize to feed their families.

Since school vouchers are Republican"s way of siphoning tax dollars to evangelical schools and starving public education, our children will learn only right wing world visions and who deserves to live in it.
McCain"s ignorance of and right wing sexual obsessions about the Internet will create laws limiting its use.

McCain will reinstate the draft and a foreign policy inline with his antiquated warrior fantasies. McCain"s foreign policy naïvity will lead us to wars, perhaps WWIII. And the use of nuclear weapons.

And then we can all celebrate how we got even with Sen.Obama for not nominating Hillary for VP.

Or that we kept a black man out of the White House.

Congratulations!

[BuckarooBanzai]

In sales training, one of the first things you learn is that you can't take objections of your product at face value. More often than not there are underlying issues or concerns that need to identified and dealt with.

This is what is going on here with Obama. Ok, so he has pages and pages on his policy but people are still saying his policy needs to be more specific. Why? (Hint: It's not stupidity). Possibly it's one of the following:

a) I don't trust him. He talks nice but will he do what he says he will do? He said wonderful things about protecting the constitution but he caved on the FISA bill faster than you can say "Steny Hoyer".

b) His ads don't show he understands what's going on in this country: I'm losing my house, I am losing my job, my childrens' future has been sold o'seas. I don't want to see sunshine and windmills, I want the man to recognize my issues and talk to me as a serious adult.

c) He has refused to take the fight to the Republicans. Instead he lets McCain kick sand in his face and all he can say is "Quit it or I am going to tell the teacher!!". Does he have what it takes?, or is he really a sissy?

This is what is really going on and this is what Obama has to address; not how many policy pages he has on his web-site

[HowietheScreamer]

Or option d) I'm really against voting for a black guy, but I don't want all my friends to know my secret name is Cletus.

[SaltySaltillo]

In college I used to have some classes taught by people who ascribed to the ideas of "Evolutionary Psychology" which basically takes an observed behavior of contemporary human beings and attempts to create a plausible narrative of how such a behavior emerged in evolution in pseudo-biological terms.

I wonder how evolutionary pyschologists like Trivers would explain the stupidity of the American voter...

[cdub1991]

It's a maladaptive behavior that has survived due to a lack of alpha predators amongst other nations. That's why the rest of the world is poised to take our lunch money and we don't seem able to respond with anything other than chants of "We're number one!"

[cackal]

You sure hit the nail on the head. This has been one of my pet peeves - the myth that Obama is all rhetoric and no specifics. (And, yes, his opponents reinforce this narrative, as does the media.) You are right - there is substance, Obama has specific, very detailed policy proposals. So, why don't people bother to do their own research? If you see a McCain commercial that says Obama will raise taxes, why take it at face value? Go to Obama's website and, as Ms. Bergthold points out, there is a comprehensive outline of this tax proposals - as well, as for probably every issue you would want to know about. And, then go to McCain's website and look at his tax proposals. Compare and contrast - and then you have the right to say whether your views on tax policy are closer to Obama's or McCain's. Contrary to "urban myth" Obama's speeches are full of substance - if you care to listen to them or read them carefully and attentively. The information is there, easily accessible, go get it and decide for yourself. Also, do read the Leonhardt piece in the NYT Sunday magazine - it is very good and sets forth Obama's economic ideaology very well. Sure, it is long but, guess what? Participatory democracy can not survive if people do not participate - and that means educating yourself.