Dear Barack: Some Words Of Advice
Dear Barack,
From time to time, I hope you don't mind if I offer you a little advice. I know you've got smart advisers and all, but there's something about living inside the bubble of a campaign that tends to blind people to common sense.
Anyway, barring a miracle, it's clear you've got the nomination, which means it's time to look ahead to the general election. Your opponent and his minions have already made it abundantly clear what their central strategy will be: to repeat "national security in a time of war" until their tongues fall out.
Like last time, they don't have anything else to go on. Your strategy seems to be to remind people that you opposed the war in Iraq. That'll do just fine for us peaceniks. But that's not going to be enough to win over the moderates who will decide the election. You're going to need a new approach, one that deprives McCain and his proxies of the fallacious claim that we're at war.
In your next speech, I'd try something like this:
"Senator McCain likes to remind us that we're at war in Iraq, and that we can still win that war if we dump billions more into the effort, and risk the lives of more of our brave soldiers. The fact of the matter is that we've already won the war in Iraq. Just ask Saddam Hussein. What we're losing is the occupation.
"We're losing the occupation because of egregious mistakes made by the Bush Administration and its supporters, including Senator McCain. Let me say that again, so there's no confusion: we already have won the war in Iraq. Our brave military accomplished what it set out to do, which was not to rebuild a country in our image, but to depose a dictator.
"Senator McCain's suggestion that withdrawing troops amounts to a surrender is a cynical effort to drum up votes by reducing the fate of Iraq to a pride drama. The American people are sick of it. They're tired of seeing our young men and women killed and maimed by roadside bombs, our domestic crises ignored, and the economic future of our children mortgaged, all for the sake of trying to salvage a botched invasion.
"Our military has been in Iraq for nearly five years. The time has come for the Iraqi people to decide for themselves what sort of country they wish to live in. And for Senator McCain to stop insulting the troops - and the intelligence of our populace - by equating an orderly withdrawal from Iraq to a military loss."
Thanks for listening.
Your unpaid advisor,
Steve Almond
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Thanks! Love your article.
I think it's way too premature to say he's got the nomination. The Clintons plan to get the keys to the bigh house back regardless of the cost.
In terms of advice, here's some for him. D I G I T U P !
Hillary will probably win Ohio tomorrow by up to 10 points and maybe even squeak Texas. She will have done so by smearing Obama in several key ways. If he genuinely wants the nomination, he's going to have to resort to similar tactics (and, as we all know, the Republicans have a trough full of swill about Hillary and her hubby which could be borrowed at the right price). Dig in Barack. Take your gloves off. It is a wonderful thing to try to play fair and by the rules, but you're not playing with gentle folk. Roll up your sleeves and have a go at her for claiming 8 years of experience as a spouse to an important public figure. Demand to know exactly what she did there other and whether or not she ought to have done so without an elected mandate. EXPOSE her campaign contributers and the 3000 tons of pork she has peddled since becoming the jr. senator for a state with which she has no natural connection. PLAY UP the fact that even her own husband says that she is so tight with the Republican nominee that theirs would be the " the most civil election for the presidency ever ".
It is sad to say but the adage " Nice Guys Finish Last " will prove true once again in this election unless Obama gets a spine and drops the nice guy act. There's just too much dirt on Hillary and her spouse not to use it.
No, we don't need more dirt. However, I do think Obama has to call a spade a spade and ask voters if this is the type of America they want.
Very sensible advice!
Now how can anyone get Obama to hear it?
To listen to it?
To act upon it?
I've been reading some of the comments describing the Iraq debacle as a "war for oil"...whi
One delicious irony (at least THIS week!) is that thanks to advances in technology regarding oil-sands recovery, (and economic factors related to the sharply increased price of crude oil.).....
If you'd like to see Sen. Obama elected President then you should join me in my fervent hope that Mr. Almond's advice falls on deaf ears in the "war room" down at hope and change central.
The suggestion that Sen. Obama parse words about whether the carnage in Iraq constitutes a "war", an "occupation" ,or a "botched invasion" (INSULT the troops,... no less!) is, with all due respect ,about the worst I've heard yet. That he should do so in a campaign against the likes of John McCain is absolute lunacy!
Like him or not,...McC
Sen. Obama has, so far, done just fine forthrightly stating that the war (yes WAR) was wrong from the outset, and highlighting his early opposition to it. The problem for Obama during the general campaign will be "fleshing out" his inspirational but highly UN-specific rhetoric with concrete proposals for achieving his stated objectives. This will be true in many areas but none so difficult, and none so filled with pitfalls as the Iraq war.
I think he's made a good start most recently by calling attention to how much more REAL security could be achieved by devoting the enormous resourses being squandered in Iraq to domestic concerns.I also think he's done fairly well deflecting the inevitable "cut-and-run" criticism by linking this with strong language about "carrying the fight to our REAL enemies" (Al-queda, Afghanista
Remember, in the fall Sen. Obama will not be trying to distingush himself as the most anti-war candidate to an audience of Democratic primary voters predisposed to be receptive to this message. He'll be up against a bona-fide war hero possesed of tremendous credibility on national security issues, and if Obama is percieved as parsing words, or trying to gloss over hard truths with airy rhetoric (a charge to which he is vulnerable in MANY areas)...i
To my mind, Mr. Almond has suggested Sen. Obama hand McCain an even BIGGER stick with which to whack him, and I hope his advice goes unheeded. Regards...
... and I would add to what you've said and what Sen. Obama has touched on: we must change the mind set of how we deal with our enemies as well as our allies. I believe he needs to expound upon this concept and let it roll around in the collective consciousness for a while. It IS time for change.
Like you didn't already know...you are good! I would hire you to give me directio, Steve.
I agree. Obama needs to go beyond his "I opposed the war from the beginning" rhetoric. He should focus on his plan to get us out and how that is opposed to McCain's stay the course mentality.
Naive. You are talking policy. That's now how he will be attacked.
For a lesson on how the neocon media handles its opponents, look to what was done to Hillary. Obama supporters like to dismiss ideas of a right wing media because their guy has been getting all the benefit. That is already starting to turn. If he gets the nomination, the onslaught will be swift and nasty. A smile and a dream won't deflect the mud they're going to throw. For a primer, just look at the lies that the media convinced America (including the deluded and gullible Obama supporters) about Hillary. You've been used and now it's coming at you. You can't duck and you can't whine. It won't be based on truth and it won't be logical.
If the media could convince supposed Democrats to call Hillary a baby killer and someone who loves war, they can convince voters (some of them Barack Independents) of the same calumny against Senator Obama. There will be a preoccupation with looks and spouse as well as allegations of illegal real estate deals. Hey, it worked on you.
Steve,
Good points. We are at war because we choose war - a war of choice, at least in Iraq. A war for oil, too.
By characterizing the GWOT as a continuing "clash of civilizations" and by endowing the president as an ultimate "decider" as to who belongs in the Axis of Evil, the United States has already clothed itself with a shield of righteousness to cloak its imperial ambitions around the globe.
Not only does the United States have ambitions, it also has "needs." One of those needs is OIL. Just as the Pony Express had to go through, Jimmy Carter declared that the oil has to go through. The real issues of the debate are hidden from public view. No candidate from either party will admit that we will do whatever it takes to get oil from the middle east and now the Caspian Sea area.
John Edwards stated that the GWOT was a "bumper-sticker slogan." Nobody wanted to hear that message. Yes, there is a threat to our way6 of life - lack of infinite supplies of oil. It is not Western Civilization that is threatened, just our oil supply.
If Obama stated the truth, he would be vetted out, just as John Edwards was. No, we must continue the to define the debate around fictional issues framed by the neocons - security, not OIL. The best lie contains a grain of truth.
Excellent post.
However, I think that the last word in your following sentence should be "occupatio
"They're tired of seeing our young men and women killed and maimed by roadside bombs, our domestic crises ignored, and the economic future of our children mortgaged, all for the sake of trying to salvage a botched invasion."
Agree?
Well stated! Over the last couple days Barack Obama has been too passive anyway, just reacting to the smears. The Clintons are all over MSM, just check the entry pages of the major tv networks. CNN is basically showcasing every Clinton event, sometimes Hillary and Bill on parallel live streams! Which could be expected because the media would like the race to continue. Obama is probably busy doing ground work which hopefully will pay off. But in the times of multimedia overkill you can't just ride the wave, you have to stay on course actively. I hope there'll be some new positive stuff out there by tomorrow. If Hillary wins Ohio this campaign will get even uglier. Although it might be good to toughen up Barack Obama for the real fight in November. Better learn early about how to deal with the nasty stuff out than later when it might be too late.
Why do your comments ignore the fact that the war we WON was neither just nor honorable? That it was based on lies and Neocon ideas of aggrandizement? That, more than anything, it was and is a war for control of OIL and wealth? We have lost almost 4,000 lives in that mess, have seen at least 25,000 wounded, and THERE WAS NEVER A DECLARATION OF WAR. This was an invasion of a sovereign country based on the FLAWED IDEA OF PREEMPTIVE WAR! Only cowards and defects embrace the idea of preemptive war (Hitler waged one) and we should be ashamed of everything that went on in Iraq and the people who led us there, both in the White House and the Pentagon.
This isn't a post about how we got into an illegal war (everyone knows that), but instead how to deflect the arguments that will be forthcoming. It's a wonderful and quintessentially Barack-like rebuttal that I hope will find it's way into his speeches (where he will credit young Steve here). The occupation/war juxtaposition would have a great resonance in a country that had a hard time ever thinking it was at war to begin with.
Good advice. I suspect you'll hear that message soon enough.
Agree. Obama needs to stress this again and again, especially when McCain responds by raising the specter of al-Qaida. Point out that right now we're in an occupation, trying to manage a civil war from breaking out again. Point out that one of the reasons the surge is working, besides the brave sacrifices of U.S. troops, is that we are paying roughly 80,000 Sunnis basically not to attack us. And it's entirely likely that many of those Sunnis are former members of Al-Qaida in Iraq.
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