The people don't want to shake hands with the GOP candidate while McCain's stepping on their chest. Blood needs to fly.
Here's how and why:
I have said it on this blog before, and I say it here again: Prevailing military wisdom is that while the defense is the strongest stance, the attack is the most preferrable, because the attack defines the battle. This is a lesson that the Democrats are ignoring at their peril in the case of the election, and one they best take to heart soon.
In the case of the election, the Democrats are letting John McCain define the "narrative" of the two candidates - their personalities. He is doing this primarily through ads, surrogates and 527 insinuations. The story he tells is a simple, resonant one for most Americans:
"I am a war hero who suffered for your sins of failure in Vietnam and for love of country. My opponent is a radical black man, an outsider to your way of life, and you cannot trust him because he is so charming."
It is hitting home. Obama is being pounded down in the polls, from starlet to symbol of an uncertain future. His positives are being turned into negatives. McCain, on the attack, is defining the positive course of the direction - and he's turning it down a very dark road: One where voters are focused on how afraid they are of Obama, and so cannot realize they should be terrified of McCain.
Yet Obama and the Democrats are allowing it happen. Only recently have they really put their shoulders into shoving Obama's biography forefront in this campaign. They have, over the past few weeks and especially at the convention, tried to show the "hero of the working class" Obama and his blue-collar-rooted wife.
This is a reaction, not an action. It is, therefore, inherently subordinate to the opposition's strategy. McCain is still directing events.
And the main way Democrats are allowing this to happen is because they are not making attacks of their own. They attack on issues and they attack on reasoning. If voters voted on either of these points, or if the media had any compelling interest in the truth being told, this would matter.
Voters vote on their emotions - on how they feel about a candidate's stance on an issue, not by knowing what that stance is. The media hates the truth; the truth means things are settled, meaning conflict is over with, and you might as well change the channel.
The Democrats must attack on basis of character. Instead, they reinforce McCain's definition of himself as all the while he rips down Obama:
The GOP accuses Obama of being a terrorist, of being a radical, of hating the country, of wanting to lose the war so that he could win the election. The Democrats call John McCain, "a good man," "a good friend," a "good soldier" of "honored sacrifice," acting as though he was just doing what politicians do - playing to a base - and so suffering a temporary lapse of morals.
They need to stop this. It shores up McCain's story, making his claims - false though they may be - seem founded in truth and integrity.
They need to hit his character. They need to define the battle. They need to start hammering home who these candidates are - a man who has devoted his life to bringing people of all kinds together to solve the problems of the common man, and a conniving, venal, ambitious and hateful man who plays the political currents for his own ends.
No more "good friend." No more "good soldier." No more "honored service." Let Tucker Bounds float those potty logs. Start making waves:
Remind people of the Keating Five. It shows his avarice.
Remind people of his first wife being left broken in body and heart for a beer heiress. It shows his selfishness.
Remind people of his anger, of how "everyone in Congress has a John McCain story," of how he called his wife a cunt for criticizing his thinning hair. It shows his spite.
Remind people of the constant mistakes he makes. Remind them of the constant lying. Remind them that he's got nothing, nothing, which is why he tries to scare people into rejecting his opponent - and remind them that those are the actions of a coward.
Call him a coward. Call him old. Call him hateful.
People may think this is going overboard. But this is what is working against Obama. It is a tactic where the voter may not agree with its statement, but they feel ill thinking about the candidate - they fear him, doubt him, despite their better sense. They don't feel like voting for him. They stay home. Or they get angry and march.
This is what a population with an electorate galvanized by rage wants.
They are furious at Bush. Furious that their jobs are vanishing, furious at the war. The Democrats must channel that fury. Direct it at McCain.
Otherwise, he will continue direct it at them.
Obama can stay above this fray - he can simply avoid praising McCain in any fashion and play to the central message: That McCain is a lying flip-flopper, "The Great American Sell Out." But the rest of the Dems must do their jobs as surrogates, and start handing out torches to the angry mob that's waiting to burn the monster of the last eight years.