I just segued over to RCP’s Horse Race Blog, where Jay Cost has a lengthy criticism of Obama’s campaign. His two main complaints are that (i) the meta-narrative of Obama as transcendental uniter is risky and (ii) Obama needs to find the “common touch.” I agree that the meta-narrative might end up causing some problems, especially if McCain can ingrain “is he ready to lead?” into the national consciousness; you would expect somebody who wasn’t ready to lead to view himself as capable of building a bridge over perennial divides out of optimism and words.
As far as the second criticism, I think Cost has an impoverished conception of the “common touch” and, consequently, he’s missed that Obama actually is pretty good at “connecting” with voters. To Cost, the “common touch” amounts to the ability to look natural eating corn dogs while empathizing with Mom and Pop; hence his recommendation that Obama should “embark on an “Anytown, USA” bus tour where he can meet people on the street, visit struggling factories (making sure he doesn’t wear a suit), neighborhoods where dropping home values have been a problem, and places where gas prices have hit consumers especially hard. No big venues. Small stuff. Out in the open. Unscripted and organic.” His worry is that Obama is too articulate, and comes across as a “lecturer,” an elitist, etc.
Cost doesn’t realize that there’s another way to connect with average folk — a way that is perfectly compatible with good spechifying — which is to give articulate voice to their inchoate concerns. Rush Limbaugh kinda does this. The ditto-heads (needless to say) tune in to see what their message should be and how it should be articulated. No doubt they often find themselves, while listening to Rush, thinking something like “that’s what I’ve always thought, I just haven’t been able to express it.” Just like Rush can connect with everydayman by being smarter than him, so too can Obama. And he’s pretty good at doing it and targeting those demographics he most needs to woo (e.g. blue collar whites). For example, remember when he “lectured” blacks on the need to be responsible parents? — he was voicing a sentiment that, rightly or wrongly, plenty of whites share. He has a knack for doing this, viz. explaining and defending lefty policies in terms that make them sound appealing to centrists and social conservatives.
So I don’t think Obama needs to connect with voters any better than he already does, but he should figure out a way to distance himself from Utopianism.
