What is up with Barack Obama?

Obama could be come the next JFK, minus all the womanizing. But he appears to lack a killer instinct, a syndrome quite prevalent among the current crop of likely Democrat presidential nominees. Recently he claimed he's going to take the gloves off and go after Clinton, but I suspect it may be too little too late. The time to attack, to distinguish yourself is right at the beginning. Making a formal decision to do it now makes me think they've realized that what they're doing isn't working.

Dems seem to be perpetually afraid of saying anything too controversial, despite the fact that polls indicate that the majority of Americans agree with them on the most important issues of the day. How is it that Republicans have no fear of uttering the most absurd statements imaginable (i.e. Romneys "double Guantanamo"), while Dems are biting their nails at saying they will end the Iraq war?

Obama's message is "hope" and a more positive politics. That's great, but it ain't gonna cut it in 2007. I would argue that the mindset of the electorate, the things they will respond to, is more receptive to a forceful message. He should be aggressively attacking the Republican party and their conservative ideology. He should NOT be attacking Bush, by the way. That would be a mistake, because Bush is out in 2009 and people will want to forget about him. Bush is most useful not as an individual, but as a shining example of conservative principles in action. He should be made to seem like he is the quintessential conservative. Why? Because conservatives are now trying to claim that Bush is not a conservative! That should tell you the correct strategy to use with Bush.

Want more wars? Vote Republican conservative. Want more debt? Vote Republican conservative. Hate children, and want them to be sick? Vote Republican conservative. The Republicans are a self-generating opposition research machine, but Dems just can't seem to make that connection.

Republicans are using fear as a central theme in their quest for the White House. Hope is not strong enough to combat fear, and it is not a primal animalistic emotion. What can counter fear? Anger. Make people angry. Really angry. And the rhetorical frame for that anger is the notion that the American people have been ripped off. People HATE to be ripped off. It combines the notions of theft, lying, and malice of forethought. That's what Obama should use his rhetorical gift for. Now, it is important for Obama himself not to appear too angry, he has to calibrate his level of outrage, lest the media pull a Howard Dean on him. But he has to speak forcefully, and make people pissed off with the Republicans.

Easy example. Flown domestically recently? The "security" theater at the airport is absurd. Take your shoes off, 3 oz. liquid limit, etc. It delays everyone, costs people money and raises your airfare so you can't afford to go see grandma on the holidays, it makes it hard to carry breast milk aboard so I guess it's also anti-child, anti-family, anti-mothers. And to top if off none of it has made a dime's worth of difference since the screeners miss ~70% of fake bombs carried aboard! This is conservative government in action. This is the best the Republican party can do. They raise prices, increase delays, and you get NO benefit. They say they improved security, but they're lying. They ripped you off.

Rinse and repeat.