The Opacity of Hope

How quickly it's all changed.....

Two months ago, Obama was the media darling, carrying an excitement that the talk show bookers couldn't get enough of.

Today they want to get him on to grill him about what's gone wrong.

The media and the campaigns have somewhat drawn a line in the sand for tonight's Dem debate. He has to perform. He has to meet some arbitrary standard or the media's conventional wisdom will drag him down.

Even the lefty blogs have seemed to abandon him. (Or even worse, begun to ignore him.)

Most surprisingly to me, he seems to have lost the fervor. Watching the few clips of his recent appearances, he no longer seems to carry a confidence. He no longer "smells" of winning.

His popularity was built on a nearly mythic belief that he could somehow "change things." Getting caught in a battle over differentiating positions makes him just another one of them.

It's my belief that his only way out is to re-embrace a broad philosophical argument that differentiates himself and paints Clinton's "competence" as her biggest flaw. (A debate format is about the worst venue to try and make such a substantial shift.)

In the end though, this was always going to be Obama's challenge, to transition from the vagaries of "hope."

(PS. In all of this discussion, there is very little mention of the Clinton campaign, and I think that's a mistake. It's my belief that they've done an incredible job of "managing expectations" throughout the race. The early push for "inevitability" had the effect of creating a binary race, pushing Edwards to the side, and now they're wearing down Obama.

The Clinton core is very, very good, with alot of media contacts and influence. I think it's a mistake to think that just because we haven't seen the candidate doing or saying anything to think that the Clinton campaign hasn't been "managing expectations."

There's alot going on under the water. You know?)

PPS. Somewhere I read that Clinton hasn't had a significant appearance since last Saturday because she's been prepping for this debate.

Let's call this open for discussion.