US Politics Analysis: Why Obama Has to Get Specific and Get Positive at the Convention

Last week in Florida, Mitt Romney and the Republican Party passed an important test. Overcoming the bizarre political skit by Clint Eastwood, the GOP National Convention competently presented its candidate as a person who cares about the economic plight of many of the American people.

It was a solid performance by Romney and others, especially in their ability to concentrate on a political message --- it is alright to like President Obama even as you cast your ballot against him for being a disappointment --- which they hope will persist throughout this presidential campaign.

The Republican Convention established the argument in the minds of wavering voters that hopinig for change --- alongside the failure of the current "hope and change" President --- is a legitimate reason to support Mitt Romney. You might want to have a beer with the incumbent, or have him as the point guard on your pick-up basketball team, but when it comes to looking after the economy, Mitt is the old style bank president who you can trust with your assets.

This week in North Carolina, the Democratic Convention will attempt to counter that impression by continuing to paint a picture of Romney as the nation's leading Bankster villain, not the George Bailey type from the film Its a Wonderful Life. But this line of attack, which has concentrated on the allegedly unethical nature of Romney with his withheld tax returns and business career at Bain Capital, may have been curbed in effectiveness.

Since Sunday, Republicans have managed to build on the success of their Convention narrative by reprising the old "Are you better off than 4 years ago?" refrain of Ronald Reagan from 1980. This came in response to a new poll from The Hill which showed that “52% of likely voters say the nation is in 'worse condition' now than in September 2008" including 53% of "centrists".

The danger for the Obama campaign is that by continuing to attack Mitt Romney personally, will alienate voters who accept the basic premise of the Romney team that the President has done a bad job on the economy. For President Obama to ignore their concerns in favour of negative comments about the opposition is not the wisest course.

At least not in Charlotte this week. The one substantial criticism of Romney's speech in Tampa was that he did not provide any policy details of what he would do if he wins the Presidency. In light of the traction that Republicans can achieve with the "Are you better off?" angle, President Obama has been urged to present some ideas that would justify the support of voters who have been disappointed with his first term. As a Washington Post editorial put it on Monday:

Specifically, what would Mr. Obama do to restrain health-care costs and entitlement spending? How would he reduce the national debt to a sustainable level, where would he find revenue beyond taxing the rich, and can he enlist at least some Republican help in either goal? How would he ensure that the war in Afghanistan ends in a way that protects U.S. security interests as well as basic human rights in that country, and how will he prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon? Would he, in a second term, adhere to the concern for endangered civilians and the promotion of freedom he boasted of in Libya or to the hands-off policy he has followed in Syria?

The progressive group Campaign for America's Future was more strident on Tuesday with a call for Obama to Answer the Question of What Comes Next with a full-blooded “populist agenda":

Lay out a bold plan for American revival that includes vital investment (rebuilding America and investing in areas key to our future), rules to help workers share in the profits they are helping to produce (raise the minimum wage, empower workers to bargain collectively), policy to help insure that we make things in America once more, and revoke the tax breaks and corporate trade deals that give companies incentives to ship good jobs abroad. Offer to help pay for this with progressive taxes on the rich, by shutting down tax dodges abroad and by taxing financial speculation to help pay of the damage it wrought.

This speech is Obama's last big opportunity to propose an economic plan that will explain to voters how they will be better off in four years. His strategists may want to consider the example of Jimmy Carter's loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

President Carter's acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, after a tough primary challenge from Edward Kennedy, struck a note all too familiar today: “This election is a stark choice between two men, two parties, two sharply different pictures of what America is and what the world is, but it's more than that – it's a choice between two futures.”

Carter then inspersed lofty claims like...

I see a future of justice—the justice of good jobs, decent health care, quality education, a full opportunity for all people regardless of color or language or religion; the simple human justice of equal rights for all men and for all women, guaranteed equal rights at last under the Constitution of the United States of America.

...With negative attacks on the Republican Party:

The only way to build a better future is to start with the realities of the present. But while we Democrats grapple with the real challenges of a real world, others talk about a world of tinsel and make-believe. Let's look for a moment at their make-believe world. In their fantasy America, inner-city people and farm workers and laborers do not exist. Women, like children, are to be seen but not heard. The problems of working women are simply ignored. The elderly do not need Medicare. The young do not need more help in getting a better education. Workers do not require the guarantee of a healthy and a safe place to work. In their fantasy world, all the complex global changes of the world since World War II have never happened. In their fantasy America, all problems have simple solutions—simple and wrong.

What Carter did not do, then or later in his campaign, was to offer the specifics that backed his claim of "a future of justice”.

The lesson from 1980 is that, in a tight election, the messages that a campaign builds over several months with little apparent effect can be devastating when deployed properly in the Presidential debates. In the sole encounter, Reagan gave this short soliloquy to the cameras:

Next Tuesday is Election Day. Next Tuesday all of you will go to the polls, will stand there in the polling place and make a decision. I think when you make that decision, it might be well if you would ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe, that we're as strong as we were four years ago? And if you answer all of those questions yes, why then, I think your choice is very obvious as to whom you will vote for. If you don't agree, if you don't think that this course that we've been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then I could suggest another choice that you have.

Reagan also gave President Carter a devastating, if rehearsed, put-down when he jocularly muttered "here we go again", as Carter launched yet another negative attack on Reagan's record on Medicare and Social Security. It was a telling moment, then and now: Carter, like Obama, was considered defensive about his achievements during his first term, and both have appeared too eager to criticise opponents instead of casting positive light on those four years.

President Obama has the chance to redress that in his speech Thursday. If he does not and adopts a negative tone, one can see Mitt Romney --- who is doing a substantial amount of debate preparation this week --- deliver his own Reagan-esque "here we go again" in October.