I've blogged recently about abandoning Obama for Hillary because we gotta win in '08 and my Nader days are over and if it has to be the profoundly compromised Clintons so be it.
That would at least be sane. As compared to, say--RUDY.
But tonite, lounging on my couch, I catch Obama on Cspan in Manchester NH on Labor Day. He showed signs of dropping the professorial detachment thing he's been doing and letting passion loose, which I have been theorizing he's been holding back for tactical reasons, but was beginning to doubt it.
But he did it. He got emotional. And the way he worked the rope line afterwards--it was beautiful. Every hand he touched was his forever.
So just assuming--hoping, praying--that he's been keeping the big guns of emotion out of action until now for tactical reasons and he's about to switch to inspiration, here's my advice:
Hillary can do tough. She can do smart. She can make us feel, in the absence of the lift of a driving dream, that she is the one who can win. But she can't do inspiration. If Obama can, and is going to, here is what he should say:
"I don't have a well-oiled political machine. I don't have a history at the top of the Washington power pyramid with all the advantages that come with that. So if I am going to win this thing it will be because you and you and you turn out in your towns and neighborhoods and work for something more than just beating the Republicans. It will be because you and you and you are willing to work for a whole new beginning in our political life.... etc...."
But then he has to say:
"If, at the end of the day, Hillary wins than so be it. I will gladly turn on a dime and support her in the general election. Her machine can deploy me as they will. There will not be one ounce of resentment. Her heart is in the right place and I trust it. Our country will be infinitely better off with any Democrat as president... etc..."
He has to say both those things all the time. For one thing, it counters her "I'm above all our squabbles ploy." But most important: it's true.