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Obama's debatable performance

James Forsyth

Friday, 18th April 2008

David Brooks has an absolute must-read column on the problems that Barack Obama seems to be storing up for the general election:

“Furiously courting Democratic primary voters and apparently exhausted, Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal. He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics. He claimed falsely that his handwriting wasn’t on a questionnaire about gun control. He claimed that he had never attacked Clinton for her exaggerations about the Tuzla airport, though his campaign was all over it. Obama piously condemned the practice of lifting other candidates’ words out of context, but he has been doing exactly the same thing to John McCain, especially over his 100 years in Iraq comment.
Obama also made a pair of grand and cynical promises that are the sign of someone who is thinking more about campaigning than governing. He made a sweeping read-my-lips pledge never to raise taxes on anybody making less than $200,000 to $250,000 a year. That will make it impossible to address entitlement reform any time in an Obama presidency. It will also make it much harder to afford the vast array of middle-class tax breaks, health care reforms and energy policy Manhattan Projects that he promises to deliver. Then he made an iron vow to get American troops out of Iraq within 16 months. Neither Obama nor anyone else has any clue what the conditions will be like when the next president takes office. He could have responsibly said that he aims to bring the troops home but will make a judgment at the time.”

Certainly, Wednesday night was Obama’s worse debate performance in a while. But the malaise seems to be affecting the Obama campaign more broadly. Obama needs to show that he can pivot back to the centre for the general election and transcend conventional liberalism.

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Ian C

April 18th, 2008 1:54pm

Those who make the headlines early in the US presidential campaigns rarely last the distance - and it is some distance that they have to go, all of it under fire, the first half from your own side, and then then the enemy start shooting to kill. And we are not even in May. He may just scrape the nomination but the damage being done to both Dem. candidates is enormous. I reckon its evens that Hilary has done enough at this stage to steal the show, as his vulnerabilities are only belatedly becoming apparent, while she has been consistent in warning of his unelectability.

TGF UKIP

April 18th, 2008 7:05pm

Obama can probably do and say as he likes in his quest for the Democratic nomination knowing that in the general election two factors will be working for him. Firstly, McCain will almost certainly want to fight a positive campaign - that's a central part of the McCain image. Secondly the main TV Networks (Fox excepted) and all the heavyweight Press are going to be so desperate for a Democrat victory that they will find myriad reasons to forgive, forget and sweep over whatever Obama chooses to say now. McCain really must get an attack dog VP candidate.