Ok. Instead of just feeling bad about Obama's sagging lead, here are five specific things Obama could do this week to regain the momentum and return his four-point lead over McCain going into the convention:
1. Announce Biden as his Vice Presidential pick on Monday (to give the press a full week of Obama/Biden stories) and have Biden immediately give a talk on his conversations with the Prime Minister of Georgia and Obama's full support for Georgian territorial integrity. This would negate McCain's "Georgia" bounce. Avoid any moral-equivalencies in talking about improving negotiating ability with Russia, etc. - just focus on defending the Georgian underdogs from agression. Let Biden come out strong, wave big stick, sound mean, etc.
2. Do as Nate Silver suggests and throw his support into the Gang of 10 that are negotiating a drilling/energy compromise. Take the hit from the hard left by saying this is the sort of across-the-isle compromise is what Obama is coming to Washington to help enable. That would effectivey wrest the drilling issue and the "maverick" issue from McCain, both at the same time.
3. Announce an "American Workers First" plan that distills the positive points of his health, tax, and trade policies into an easy-to-digest five-point soundbite to restore blue-collar jobs and a middle-class economy. Make sure each point is a sentance with less than 10 words. Hire a new ad team and use creative, out-of-the-box ad to blast the message through the bloggosphere and get the new ad picked up and analyzed on evening news ("what's new about this, hasn't this always been his plan, he's making the case more succinctly now, etc.").
4. Announce and hold spontaneous voter round-tables in Columbus, Ohio and northern Virginia where Obama will answer unscripted questions from "average" voters. In Columbus, visit a hospital and do it with a crowd of healthcare workers. In Virginia, visit a computer manufacturing or high-tech (non-internet) company. Have live coverage on CNN. Avoid large crowds or seeming to be unapproachable - make these intimate "one-on-one" affairs.
5. Have surrogates push hard on the stories about McCain's Iselin affair or push an old Keating Scandal associate back into headline news, making sure it gets picked up for discussion on rounds of cable talking heads shows. Talking heads will compare McCain and Edwards, but with Edwards out of the picture, Obama surrogates can say, "Democrats were smart to elect a nominee who didn't have this kind of scandle lurking around...." (implying McCain does.) Make sure that a surrogate uses a comparison to Bill Clinton (will we once again see a White House consumed by old affairs and conspiracies?) and suggest a similar "self-involved temperment," so that the McCain/Clinton meme gets put out there (is this another coming of a Clinton-style President?) Conservatives will go ape-shit over comparing McCain to Clinton, which will keep the story playing out into the convention.
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