Sen. Obama: Confront Your Critics Face to Face on National TV

It is an axiom of Karl "The Traitor" Rove that in order to attack a candidate you should go after his or perceived strengths directly, hence the ugly lies about John Kerry that allowed two draft dodgers to impugn the patriotism of a decorated war hero. Now, I am proposing something that is in a way the inverse of this. Senator Obama, our party's nominee for President is faced with issues concerning himself, his record, his views, and, let's be honest, his race (which shouldn't matter but to a lot of people it does). It does not matter that these issues have been stirred up by our political enemies--they're out there, like it our not. I say, let Obama confront his perceived weaknesses by a nationally televised town meeting (or series of them) in which the audience consists ONLY of those who are critical of him or dubious about him. A crazy idea? Hear me out.

An audience of 500-1000 might be selected, overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly blue collar, heavily Southern (perhaps), older people, conservatives--exactly the kind of people who hold false or distorted ideas about Barack Obama. (The audience should be screened to exclude deliberate Republican Party operatives.) It should be announced ahead of time that Obama will take ANY question, however hostile. But before question time begins, I'd love to see Barack, in that wonderfully disarming way of his, ask the following questions:

How many of you have heard that I don't love America?

How many of you think I'm a Muslim?

How many of you think I look down on people like you?

How many of you know somebody who is reluctant to vote for someone who looks like me?
(That could be a rather uneasy moment of truth.)

Why predicate the Q and A session with these questions? To get everything out on the table, to eliminate all pretenses. And then let brutally honest questions be asked. (This would, by the way, prove that Obama is the exact opposite of George W. Bush, whose fawning, absurd "town meetings" in 2004 proved the full extent of Bush's emotional immaturity and insecurity.)

Let 'em ask anything, even the idiotic crap they've seen on right-wing e-mails. And then watch Barack Obama treat each questioner with respect, answer the question, and turn each question to his own advantage. At the end of 60 or 90 minutes, I predict Obama will receive a standing ovation--and the right wing gutter attacks against him will lie shattered in the dirt, never to used effectively again.

A lot of you will tell me this is a foolish or reckless idea. (Why emphasize things we're trying to push aside, you might argue. I understand how you feel.) But we need to confront these things now. We are being attacked by the politics of lies, the politics of innuendo and rumor, the politics of distortion and distraction, and the quite frankly the politics of racial hatred. Let's confront these demons head on with the most brilliant Democratic spokesman of my lifetime. A town meeting like this (or a series of them) nationally televised would help Obama shore up his support among older Democrats and help win over even more independents and fed-up Republicans. He can use hostile questions as a way of bringing up the issues that really matter to the electorate (using the poltical jujitsu that all great leaders are known for.)

Yes, it's a high risk strategy. But it carries the potential for huge rewards. Structured correctly, these national town meetings could make it much easier for millions of people to vote for the man our country needs right now to repair the damage of catastrophic right-wing rule and point out a new direction for America--our next president, Barack Obama.