That's something that has needed to be said.  He needs to look less like a candidate and more like a President.

It's not entirely Obama who needs to adapt to the changed race, but it's us supporters as well.  We need to realize that there are many voters that he does in fact not connect with, and we need to lobby strongly on his behalf.

That's my take, though the original post was worded better than anything I have to say.

Thanks for bringing this excellent diary to our attention, Lowell.  This is the kind of reality check the Obama campaign needs.  Yesterday I saw the WaPo column suggesting that the Obama campaign must go negative.  I disagree.  It's okay to note where he and Hillary disagree (which isn't negativity but distinction of differences), but I say it is far more important to do just what this diarist suggests, which is show the substance that HRC has been able to tweak him about.  Political consultants have long subscribed to the notion that a candidate must show he's one of the people in order to have any connection with them.  He has to be a great bowler or love drinking boilermakers or talk about his background of fishin', huntin', and gunnin'.  Enough already.  

In my work I meet many people of different backgrounds. There are a lot of things I haven't done, a lot of places I haven't gone, a lot of experiences I haven't had, and a lot of things I do not know.  Yet if I make the effort to connect with people on the human level, if I take an interest in them as people and ask them about themselves and what's important to them, things seem to work out just fine.  They don't expect me to know their culture or background or to share their experiences, although sometimes they are pleasantly surprised to find that I do have some things in common, but they are far more interested in whether I understand their problems and can offer a solution.  They don't come to me looking for a drinking buddy.  They come to me looking for a lawyer.

More than anything else the voters in this country are looking for someone who can understand the problem and offer solutions.  What do a lot of people know about Obama?  Well, if the press is to be believed what they know about him is he's a black guy with a funny sounding name who talks about hope but who has been criticized for failing to offer a substantive solution.  They've been told they should suspect his motives and disdain him as an elitist, a young intellectual who has no experience and "made a speech".  

The criticism I have is that Obama is allowing himself to be defined, is allowing certain premises to be established, which he then must go out and refute.  This is a mistake.  He's trying to blend when he should be willing to stand out, just as Wilder was willing to stand out.    Hillary's making the same mistake, trying to out-Republican the Republicans with her attacks on Obama, but both of them are being set up for failure.  

Obama made a pretty good start with his speech on race a few weeks ago, but he needs to revisit some of those themes in a non-threatening way.  What's wrong with poking a little fun at himself over things like bowling and boilermakers?  He's from Hawaii, for crying out loud.  How much bowling is there in Hawaii?  What's wrong with keeping himself real for people?  When politicians go out and try to be something they're not nobody's fooled and everyone thinks they're poseurs.  What's wrong with telling people he may not be able to roll a very good game, but that he can understand it can't be good for those bowlers not to have enough money to join their leagues, to have to pay more for their pitchers of beer, to worry about whether the bowling centers are going to have close due to a bad economy?  Why not talk about the practical solutions he might be able to offer?  Want a grain speech?  Tell those bowlers how the rapidly increasing grain prices are going to affect the prices of their beer and burgers.  
 

I agree with all this. After Texas and Ohio, Obama mentioned in some interviews that his campaign had gotten too cautious after the string of victories between 'Tsunami' Tuesday and the March 4 primaries.

Well, it seems unfortunately as if they didn't really learn that lesson. I do think he made great strides in Pennsylvania relative to where he started, and the demographics were against him, and it's hard to campaign against Hillary and Bill AND McCain all at the same time ... but, really, outside of the great speech on race in response to the establishment-media-created-"controversy", his campaign the past weeks has been more of the same.

That may well be the safe route to the nomination, as I believe he's essentially already won, but it does leave the door open. The weird thing is, he shouldn't have to 'play act' like he's regular folk -- Michelle makes it very clear in her speeches that they in fact understand exactly what it's like to struggle to work and pay off debts and raise children.

I read now that he's set to go Fox News this Sunday for an interview, another mistake. They just seem to have lost their mooring here the past few weeks, and I can't help but wonder why.

Barf.

Read it and weep

Really don't like this. People that watch Fox will never vote for him regardless, and all it does is piss off his base. Not smart.

This is in direct response to her if you can't take the heat get out of the kicthen comment

On a more serious note.  If Obama wants to really build a bridge and create a new era of politics (two themes of his campaign) he should not only be talking but working with the other "side" on a regular basis

Let that sink in a second.

Are you angry he is doing this.  You are part of the problem.  Unless of course Obama has no intention of working or listening to the other side and plans to steamroll a progressive agenda.  IMHO this has been his plan from day one.    

It's funny how 'bi-partisanship' only works in one direction -- when Democrats are in power, they are the ones that are supposed to be magnanimous and compromise with the hard right, while Republicans never do the same when they are in power.

I'm not angry he's going on a propaganda network, I just don't think it helps. The people that watch Fox News are the true-believers, have been conditioned to hate him based on fake outrages and non-existent scandals and race-baiting and xenophobia. Hey, enjoy yourself however you want, it's still mostly a free country, but don't expect me to validate it.

And, yes, I think Barack will be a progressive President, which is why I support him. But he has worked with all kinds of Republican Senators to try and advance bipartisan legislation, so in that respect he's much less partisan or ideological than almost all of the Senate today.  

that he would be a "compassionate conservative," "change the tone in Washington" and govern from the center.  Especially after the close election in 2000, he should have done that.  instead, from day 1, he went hard right on everything, reneged on his campaign promises, and basically did whatever Dick (Cheney) and Don (Rumsfeld) told him to do.    

His 'change the tone' and 'compassionate conservatism' schtick was always mostly imaginary -- he was able to 'compromise' in Texas with Dems because a large swath of the Texas Democratic party was still good ole boys from back in the day, conservatives by another name. The Texas governorship is as ceremonial a position as there is in the 50 states, with very little real power (except to laugh at clemency appeals).

His would have been an inconsequential, one-term Presidency if not for 9/11. The only thing I can remember about his Presidency from before that awful day was the dust-up with China over our spy plane and his retarded stem cell 'compromise'. But now the elites of the Republican party stand revealed for what they are and who they stand for. The fact that self-identification of people as Republicans is hemorrhaging is proof enough that the honest Republicans are leaving the fold. But you don't reach those people, the convincable ones, by going on Fox News.  

who dare to watch Fox News and think people like Sean Hannity and O'Reilly are a***, sorry Lowell. If one is watching the "news" based on the guy in the chair delivering it it truly is a sad commentary on the media. I always remind folks that Rush is is not a news outlet or part of the media by any real standard definiton---you know the objectivity clause of journalism--anymore than the DKos is a media outlet.
Honestly I watch them all at different times and for very different reasons but putting to bed the myth that someone would not dare come on a network may not be a bad thing.
I think the Dems not debating to begin with collectively fueled some of the negative tone to begin with.

The problem with Fox is that it is not a legitimate news organization, but is effectively a propaganda arm for the Republican Party. You can scream that other news organizations have a liberal bias all you want, but CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, none of them, operate as advocates for the Democratic Party in the same way that Fox does for the GOP. All of those organizations hammered Bill Clinton, not to mention Gore in 2000, in a way that Fox never does Bush or Cheney.

When any Democrat appears on Fox, the problem is not that they might face biased questioning from Chris Wallace, but rather than their presence on the network affords it a credibility and creates the appearance of a legitimate news organization (by legitimate, I mean that it engages in a good faith effort to discover and report truth, whether it succeeds or not) that it does not deserve.

You cannot have it both ways. You can say that you will meet with every leader in the world no matter what conditions permit them to be in power or what the State department has as the nations terrorist watch rating and act like sitting down with say Iran is not about giving the leader "creditibility" and then say by going on the Fox network that Democrats "afford it creditibility" by doing so.
Russert is about the only one who anyone could say always appears to be above the politics of the day. The problem is we have managed to consolidate the power of the paper press to a few as we have with clear channel and radio and furthermore cable seems to have taken up two very distinct camps that simply from a board room and profitibility perspective provide the news from the angle or lense by which it seeks its ratings. Of course MSNBC is the anti-Fox and it has aligned itself as such in the last eight or so years and from a business standpoint there is nothing wrong with that (Yankees have the Mets, Cowboys have the Redskins-get the idea)but do not have any allusion any of these entertainment entities are about the "news".
And by the way if MSNBC is so above it all, tell me what happened to Tucker Carlson? Yeah Gregory's show is such a great replacement, please.

between sitting down with Fox and sitting down with Iran. I understand the point you are trying to make, but credibility in terms of a news organization and credibility in terms of a government are wholly different, and our actions toward each derive from wholly different interests. So, sure, you can find similarities, I suppose, but the situations are in no way comparable.

Also, I don't maintain that others reporters, editors or media outlets meet some mythical standard of objectivity or otherwise remain above the fray. I think 98% of the news coverage out there is pretty depressing, including Olbermann. But Fox is quite different. There is ample evidence that it coordinates its coverage with the GOP message.

As for Tucker Carlson, his show sucked. If you want to contend that was ideological, didn't they also cancel Donaghue?

But the issue isn't ideology, it is furthering the interests of a political party.

Don't get me wrong -- I think it is fine for Fox to behave this wave. It is a long tradition of American Politics to have a media organization closely aligned with a political party. My only point is the Democrats should not help them.  

The point to Tucker Carlson and the bait not taken was simply "ratings". As far as the network went, his show on that network was a poor producer of ratings and that is why it was cut---nothing ideological except to say you will not find very many people who tune in to MSNBC to be inclined to watch a recovering Republican. While still under contract with the network though, his show or maybe even Tucker personally would have had greater success on another network I think and that would demonstrate possibly the ideological slant or prism that each one of these networks is catering to. Just a thought.

Here's my prediction - Faux News, in the form of that little worm Chris whatsisname - will spend the entire interview attacking him for not debating Hillary in NC, asking questions and then interrupting his replies about Rev. Wright, Ayers, Farrakhan, and Rezco, and then will introduce a lot of crap about what he's going to do if HRC overtakes him or some other non-event.

I thin the greater challenge for Obama will be to stop allowing the media to shape his campaign or this process in general. I found it striking how every media outlet finds it compelling to break down voters with reagdr to class, race and gender. Now I am not naive and know of course its statistical analysis, but is it just me or is the media sending the below the radar message everytime they break groups up and divide us into little blocks like the "black vote", the "blue collar voter", the "white men over fifty" and "women over forty", the "cell phone generation" etc and on and on. I sat in amzement how these pundits manage to shape things as very anti-individual and in fact in my opinion reinforce the divisions of class and race when they do these things as a means of trying to explain to us how someone won or someone lost. This stuff certainly is not journalism at its best. The message becomes simply an informercialof politics by the media telling if not leading people to drink in terms of what block they should place themselves in before voting in upcoming primaries. My favorite, the "catholic women" vote in PA.
The more in my view the media is allowed to shape this thing and not the candiates as I think Obama had been for months prior to Super Tuesday the more we as  Party and a nation continue a path of division. Exit Polling does nothing but in the end divide an electorate along the very lines they claim they are reporting on. The Black vote, the White vote, the Woman vote, etc --how about the Pennsylvanian vote or better yet the American vote thus far. And I wonder if we would be having such a concentration on these things if we did not have an African-American in the hunt?
many people care greatly for what America's perception is in the world and it is becoming readily apparent than internationally we are being more and more seen as a nation divided from within.

according to these distinctions.  It's only natural for us and by extension the media to be fascinated by them because we have not moved past them.  An the experience of all these different groups is different.  And your experience shapes how you view the world.  

This seems like a philosophical question though.  Does the media just report the divisions we have?  Or does the media reinforce or create divisions by framing the discussion in this way?

And to your last question, we probably would not be discussing this if it was just two white men running which has been the status quo since the formation of these United States.

Obama is doing fine.  Yes it is always good to check and verify that things are running smoothly... but they are.

Yes it would have been a pleasant surprise to end this nomination early; but even if Obama had won PA, it would have been close enough that Clinton would still be in the race....

This race is going according to plan and Obama will be the nominee.

Furthermore he will be our next president.

The real work begins once he is sworn in... we will have a lot of work getting our establishment politicians to work with him to undo some of the damage Bush has done, and even more work to get America thinking about the future.

If you put any truth in that leaked memo from February... look at it again... The spreadsheet has held up remarkably accurately all along, including Pennsylvania.
Obama's campaign is run by geniuses... it's all working very well.

I predict Obama will take what's his face to the mat, for their cheerleading the war, for their failure to cover the war, for their in the Pentagon's pocket Generals they have on, for covering bullcrap when there are real problems facing Americans these days--they are the dumbest of the the dumbed down media these days.  And I hope he let's them have it--he will take control of the conversation and not let what's his face up to breath.  And he'll do it with class.

all three Fox, MSNBC, CNN are covering the exact same thing. If you think they do not keep tabs on each other you would be wrong, but what is really interesting is the back in forth between hosts just fuels the fire. First you had the Keith O and Bill O and now you have Dan Abrams now doing the same----and this is supposed to be constructive media networks. Maybe the bloggers in the end will get the last laugh with more us being online on threads than watching them in the first place. Ohhh the future!

Personally, I'd like to see Obama rise above the negative tit-for-tat and spend more time fleshing out the audacity of hope and "Yes we can" messages, i.e.,

"Yes we can X"
"Yes we can Y"
"Yes we can Z"

With details that speak directly to issues voters care about and a common conclusion,

"Together we can. You, me, all of us working together. Yes, we, together, can."