Disclaimer: I wrote this two nights ago before the speech! (I saw some of it and had goosebumps all over!) I still think this is still not invalid. Obama has set the team on track with the speech, but I still think this applies with regard to the team. So here goes, still pretty unchanged but with an Update written after the speech...
Team Obama, I hate to have to be the one to break it to you, particularly at this late stage, but you do realize that YOU ARE THE FRONTRUNNER! Right? Team Obama, I have three words for you SPIN, SPIN, SPIN! Well, I could put it nicer and call it COMMUNICATION, but ultimately, spin is what it comes down to. Your communications department right now sucks, because for two weeks if not in fact, three now since before TX and OH, team Clinton, which is the campaign that’s behind has been shaping the narrative, and has had your campaign battling on their turf the whole time. Some other bad news team Obama, when you are playing politics on team Clinton’s turf, guess what? You lose! Which is where your communications team comes in?
tip jar: cuz change matters
Sir, your campaign has inspired me to act, and indeed it has called on my best instincts, to indeed believe not just in your ability to bring about change, but indeed in my own abilities as well, and I have. I have indeed been activated. I have participated, I have fundraised, and donated, canvassed, phone banked and even participated in church outreach, despite my non religious leanings. I say this to point out the obvious, that your powerful message has indeed resonated, with me as it has with many others and indeed it can and should and will continue to resonate, but it will only do so if it has the chance to be heard and seen at work, which is not what is happening when you allow your campaign for change to get distracted by the same old politics of yesteryear that you have decried so often and so consistently, both in words, and in deed.
And that sir is where the shortcomings of your communications department stand out as concerns SPIN. I am not for one second suggesting that you need to lower your campaign to the same tactics that you have decried, nor I’m I suggesting that you have to even turn into a Clintonesque attack machine. So while the word SPIN does indeed sound like and look like a four-letter word, I am merely suggesting its employment merely as a tactic to ensure that your campaign, indeed, the frontrunner campaign is in fact shaping the narrative, and grabbing a hold of the headlines and keeping your message of HOPE – remember that word, that campaign for Change that we all joined months ago? At this point it seems like such a distant prospect with every subject line in every email I read these days consisting of words that are suggestive of some type of race war or another. This Senator Obama, and indeed team Obama, was precisely the purpose of the underhanded tactics that have been thrown at us, in the name of Ferraro-Gate, Wright-gate, Plagiarism-gate, Nafta-gate, Muslim-gate, Somali-garb-gate and so forth!
If the only point and purpose of your communications department is merely to regurgitate information and put together newsletters, then it has and is and will continue to fail you and with it our whole campaign for change! Your communications department has to do the job of a political campaign communications department and make sure to find ways to ensure that your message is disseminated appropriately, on time, and when it matters for example on the eve of an election, say Ohio and Texas for example, or even Mississippi, where the perception of non-importance succeeded in lower than expected African American voter turn out, a demographic where Obama enjoys overwhelming support, and which could have provided an even greater and much needed popular-vote-lead padding.
As a staunch supporter, I have become increasingly frustrated to watch your campaign constantly playing defense in a Clinton campaign engineered narrative. Team Clinton is adept at the old style Rovian style dirty politicking and if you allow them to engage you, they will always win, and you will always lose. They sent forth a couple of bombs over a week ago, and right now they have sat back and watched the bombs doing their magic as they sit back and watch your campaign scrambling and on the verge of self destruction.
Some examples of unnecessary biting of the bait include a) the Geraldine "Furoro" where by she said, "If Barack Obama were a white man or a woman of any color, he would not be where he is" Well, the answer to that one needed to be nothing more than "Did someone tell Ms "Furoro" that Hillary Clinton is in fact a woman, and lo and behold, she is right there right next to Obama" and then move on to the next question. The headlines in such a case would have been the response, and not Ms Ferraro’s statement, and it would have allowed our candidate to grab the limelight in a positive manner! Sitting there trying to parse whether or not Ms Ferraro, or even Mrs. Clinton is in fact racist is plain foolish, and a grand waste of time. Mrs. Clinton’s current campaign manager is a black woman, and her first campaign manager was the first Hispanic woman to head a Presidential campaign, so that suggests to me that racist is one thing that the Clinton campaign is not. Is the campaign willing to take advantage of American fears of race, racism and issues of preferential treatment? You bet it is, and this should have been the point of attack and counter-attack. The same old politics of divisiveness, fear and the exploitation of people’s fears and emotions. It would have been a wonderful opportunity to start talking about the alternative new politics of hope and inclusiveness that our campaign embodies.
On the question of Jeremiah Wright, the response should have been quite simply, "Last week I was a Moslem, this week I am a Christian Fundamentalist, At least, that settles the question of my religion" And at that point, again, start talking about his own policies, and about the politics of change.
On the question of Florida and Michigan, team Obama is again arguing on team Clinton’s narrative, and there is again, no way to win on team Clinton’s turf. Team Obama needs their own narrative, which they can argue on and win. My suggestion would be a line such as, "Democratic Party voters were disenfranchised by the Florida GOP Party. We are committed to ensuring that despite the GOP’s move, we will get the Florida delegation seated. Florida is an important State to the Democratic Party, and we must support the Florida voters, by ensuring that they are represented at the convention, despite this move by the Florida GOP to again disenfranchise Florida voters by disobeying DNC primary regulations. We must sit the Florida delegations along with the Michigan delegations in a manner that remains fair and representative of the wishes of Democratic voters."
This or something along those lines needs to be the public stand of team Obama as far as the renegade delegates of FL and MI. A similar stand can be made with regard to MI, by placing the blame squarely on the state party, and not on voters, who undertook their civic duty with dedication.
And that ladies and gentlemen, is an example of Spin that while it does not bow to the type of dirty politics of yesteryear, still manages to sway the narrative to a position that is favorable to the promotion of the hopeful, inspiring message that is our campaign.
UPDATE: Obama with the speech did everything that I expressed frustration about his communications department failure to do with the speech yesterday. It was most refreshing and most re-assuring. I didn’t doubt that Obama would deliver and in fact after just listening to the first few minutes (I was at work) I knew it would be a home run! Timing is everything and Obama took the bull by its proverbial horns just when it was needed, but also at a time when he and his campaign could afford the time during this lull before the next primary election. It was therefore a unique opportunity to grab a hold of a sensitive issue, and indeed one that needed addressing, with the advantage of time to absorb everything that has been happening, followed by a classic Obama style response, full of substance and that touched on all the right notes without pandering. I have always believed not only in the genius that is this relatively youthful leader, but also in his sincerity and abilities to deliver. However, even this genius still needs the backing of a strong communications department that can deal with the many events that we have seen occurring during this campaign, often at lightening speed with a need to respond to two or even three major events in one single day. Obama’s genius alone is not enough as we saw in Ohio for example, to stem the real-time onslaught of dirty campaigning at inopportune times, and for that I would like to see this coup that Obama managed with his amazing speech yesterday, be the starting point of a front runner campaign that will go forth setting the pace and agenda of the narrative at least most of the time during the remainder of this campaign season!