More on Obama

On the subject of Obama, Gail Collins today astutely diagnoses the chief problem confronting his campaign. Even if people welcome your vision of a Presidency soaring above partisanship, "it’s tough to play the wise elder statesman when you’re just three years out of the Illinois State Senate." This criticism accords NYT television critic Alessandra Stanley's observation that Obama in the debates often comes across as if moderating for PBS rather than participating as a candidate.

In the recent MSNBC debate Obama spoke somewhat more forcefully, but he still seems to be committing the mistake of adopting a front-runner's above the fray attitude despite trailing in the polls. This weakness probably reflects Obama's light experience in genuinely competitive campaigns (in 2004 he trounced Alan Keyes' with 70 percent of the vote). Perhaps campaign strategist David Axelrod had hoped that a Hillary-Edwards slugfest would allow Obama to rise without attacking Hillary directly, but beyond the mid-summer clash of who would be a better advocate for women, Edwards generally hasn't succeeded in provoking Hillary into conflict. I still await more examples of Obama's promised newly aggressive campaign strategy, and am especially eager to see if he can distinguish his foreign policy views from those of Sentaro Clinton (a cause Matt Yglesias has been pushing for some months).