What some top Dems say Obama needs to do to get his campaign back on track

[book_worm]

Dan Balz's Take
Beyond Math to a Tougher Message for Obama

Time to move from change to a tougher tactic for Barack Obama? (AP).


By Dan Balz
Barack Obama awoke Wednesday to a new race for the Democratic nomination. To hear him explain Hillary Clinton's stunning victories in Ohio and Texas, Tuesday's results did little to change the basic trajectory of the race. He has more delegates and by the numbers, he still holds the higher ground. But arithmetic is not a message and inevitability is no more an argument for him than it was for her last fall.

Clinton won the two big states on Tuesday because they fit her better than Obama, because she campaigned harder than Obama and because she raised doubts about Obama. Obama lost, despite his superior resources and the momentum gained from winning 11 consecutive contests in February, because he lost both the economic and the national security arguments with his rival. Although he gained considerable ground on Clinton, the late-deciders broke decisively for her.

Obama is understandably riveted on the delegate count. It is his lifeline now that his campaign has hit another stretch of turbulence. Run the numbers every way you can and they still say he emerges from the primaries with more pledged delegates, more states won and perhaps more popular votes. But he cannot emerge with the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination. That too is the reality.

That leaves this race not only in the hands of voters in another dozen contests, including states like Mississippi, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon and West Virginia, but also, once again, in the hands of the roughly 800 superdelegates who are free to support whichever candidate they choose. They all will be judging Obama and Clinton on the quality of the campaigns they run from here forward and on their judgment as to which candidate would be the stronger nominee against John McCain in the fall. Obama will have to win that competition.

An overnight survey of around the country Democrats -- some backing Obama, some for Clinton and some neutral -- showed considerable consensus about what Obama must do to rebound from his losses in Texas and Ohio. In short it was: quit talking numbers and start getting tough.

"Obama needs to stop talking math and get much more aggressive in defining Senator Clinton," said Bill Carrick, a California-based Democratic strategist. "The Obama campaign will need to use paid media to do that. Big complicated states have lots of working class, older voters, and rural voters who have been good for Senator Clinton. Senator Obama needs a message that takes Senator Clinton on with these voters."

"He clearly has not closed the deal and I don't think a math argument will be enough," noted a pro-Clinton Democrat. "Voters (not pundits) have sent a message that they are not completely comfortable. He has six weeks now to prove that he can pass the test and it will be good for the party to have that test. He is going to have to be more substantive and more specific."

"They ran a campaign here largely designed to run on national momentum to offset Hillary's advantage," a Texas Democrat wrote in an e-mail message. "It didn't work and even worse, I think they outspent her nearly 3 to 1... And, their momentum is now gone. This morning, Obama is now talking tactics, math, and sounding a lot like an insider. They have consistently been put in a position after surprise losses in big states of talking about how far behind they were and how they almost made it. You and I know that amateurish to keep getting put in that trap. He now is in the tricky position of having to say, aggressively, "Let's look at that experience, Hillary.'"

A Democrat in Massachusetts said Obama needs to double down on substance to overcome Clinton's advantage on experience. "He's got money, he's got organization but there are deep doubts about him still. I could feel a bit of buyer's remorse creeping into this race in the last week. That's what happened last night. So now he has to prove gravitas as well as charm. McCain drips with gravitas."

"He has to hit Clinton

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/03/05/beyond_math_to_a_tougher_messa.html

[hisownpetard]

1. "McCain drips with gravitas." Umm, I don't think it's gravitas that's dripping...

unless 'gravitas' is brown and smells bad.