After the debate on Tuesday, I got the sneaking suspicion that Obama was holding back a little. He was too cool - nothing like last time. Not once did he say John McCain was “absolutely right.” Every time he prefaced a remark with some sort of agreement with his opponent, it was the set up line for drawing a contrast between himself and McCain. During the first debate, his goal seems to have been to reach a certain comfort level with the American people. Let them see he really isn’t a green eyed monster.

 

By the second debate, Americans were ready for him to be a little more assertive. He’d clearly prepared a few zingers for McCain – so he tagged him a couple of times, just to let him know he could. And the American people were watching.

 

The frustration some have expressed that Obama isn’t sufficiently inspiring in this time of crisis; probably misses the point. Unlike McCain, Obama has a strategy for the debates as a whole. He seems to be building towards a climax, the way he did at the democratic convention.

 

McCain needs to get it straight in his head that Barack Obama earned the right to be on stage with him. That appears to be the source of all his problems. It’s as if he’d rather be debating Hillary Clinton or something. If he could get past that, he might be able to relax and give a better performance. But it might not make that much difference, since he doesn’t seem to have an overarching strategy for the debates as a whole.

 

The same might be said about the respective campaigns and their overall approach. Everyday there’s a new tactic coming from the McCain camp, although they appear to be settling in on a strategy of firing up the base by smearing Obama. In doing so, they seem to be writing off the independent vote. Chris Matthews said this morning that this is how they intend to win. But it’s hard for me to see how they can win the election without winning the independent vote. Does anybody really believe that independent voters, who are typically better informed than average voters, can be convinced Obama is a terrorist sympathizer? I don’t.

 

The unions are doing yeoman’s work in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Most commentators point to the economic crisis as the reason for the movement in the polls toward Obama in the past 3 weeks or so. But even if the economic crisis hadn’t occurred, the work of these brave individuals would have paid dividends eventually. If Obama does pull this thing out, he’ll owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

 

They’re going into places where many of them grew up and confronting democrats who are reluctant to vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. They’ve been yelled at, spit at, chased by dogs, threatened, you name it. And yet they persist. It’s that very persistence that has begun to bear fruit. There’s no doubt that the economic crisis has led many in the white working class to reconsider their resistance to Obama. But those union members were there before the crisis began. They’re simply reaping the benefits of their own perseverance.

 

The white working class has been the mother’s milk of politics since the Roosevelt Administration. They left the Democratic Party beginning in the 70’s and are the reason the republicans have won 7 of the last 10 presidential elections. In his book “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” Thomas Frank put forward the thesis that republicans in effect “hoodwinked” unwitting working class voters into voting against there economic interests, with cultural bugabears like guns, gays and religion. I never believed Frank’s thesis, because it implied that people were stupid. 

 

More recent research suggests that the white working class left the Democratic Party when jobs began shipping overseas in the early 70’s. They had no use for a party that couldn’t or wouldn’t protect their jobs. The republican argument that it was the governments fault, resonated with these newly out of work voters. Just as the economy benefitted the republicans over the past several decades, it now seems to be working against them.

 

So far, Obama’s introduction to a wider audience during the debates, comports well with what union workers have been telling their comrades in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania for months. “He’s alright. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Or as Latisha Price, a union worker canvassing for Obama in one of the most bigoted county’s in Ohio put it “He’s one of us.”

 

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