First of all, I should apologize for the horribly inconsistent posting. Jim hasn’t been able to follow up with me much and I personally haven’t had the inspiration to write anything good about the campaign. The last few attempts at humor and personal potshots fell flat and I never posted them in the end (I thought about making a crack at Obama and his 300, but THIS IS SPARTA jokes are getting old)

Anyway, on to the post - in the TIME magazine’s tribute to Nelson Mandela, author Richard Stengel listed 8 lessons of leadership. No.2 was; lead from the front, but don’t leave your base behind. I can think of two ways where this can apply to Obama.

The first and most obvious is the implicit lesson of “dancing with those who brought you”. The far left has been seriously riled by Obama’s perceived moves to the center. In his excellent tribute, Stengel noted that after originally declaring that “prisoners cannot negotiate” and advocating armed struggle, Mandela initiated negotiations with the South African government on his own accord and began a campaign to persuade the ANC to go along. Obama should do the same and engage his outraged grassroots. Speak with them and bring them over with him. Only he’ll have to do it within the space of a few weeks, instead of months or years. And given the nature of the internet echo chamber, he’s in for an uphill battle. But it’s something he’ll have to do if he wants to clinch a historic landslide that will truly change America for a generation at least. If he fails to bring them over with him - and I truly believe that his decisions over FISA and his faith outreach are neither cynical ploys or sellouts to the left - then he’s going to inherit a divided base that will hobble any prospect of change and leave America where it is: a deeply divided nation without vision or purpose. 

The second part concerns his current international blitz. From Baghdad to Berlin, Obama is taking the world by storm - it would be a great pity then, if he gets the ground cut out from under him at home. Americans are concerned about domestic issues - the economy, the price of gas. International limelight is all well and good, but Obama should be careful that he doesn’t get labelled as a ‘foreign’ candidate (ok, he has already, but let’s not make it worse). The one way I could see for John McCain to turn what is shaping out into a campaign nightmare for him is to do a little bit of political jujitsu and convince voters that Obama is so rooted in the world that he would be a most untrustworthy guardian of America’s interests. He’s already halfway there anyway having worked hard to paint Obama as soft on terrorists et al.

I’d like to see Obama counter any move by Mr. McCain in this direction by emphasizing how tightly the US economy is tied to the world economy and how his engagement of the world ultimately benefits Americans back home. He should then point his finger at structural weaknesses in the US economy and socio-economic model that have been allowed to fester under Republican stewardship as the main cause for US economic hardship. In fact, I think he should do it regardless - in Asia, enthusiasm for Obama is tempered by fears of a protectionist Democratic White House and Republicans continue to bandy about free-trade models as the panacea to all the US’s economic woes while pointedly refusing to provide America with a working social development model to take advantage of it. (Markets are inherently unfair - the only way for the US to thrive in a free-market environment is to make it easier for individual Americans to compete; and that means social programs to maximize access to quality education and healthcare)

The other cog is Bill. Now Mr. Clinton is very much a wild card in the race. He can either be a massive force multiplier for Obama or a crushing double-edged sword. Still, voters remember that Mr. Clinton presided over 8 years of economic prosperity. That makes him qualified enough as a torchbearer for Mr. Obama back in the states while the candidate himself is on his global barnstorm. I’d think it would make a formidable pincer assault on McCain and the Republicans to have Mr. Clinton campaign on Obama’s behalf back in the states about the economy (it’s STILL the economy, stupid) while Obama wow’s the world with his charm and flair. Obama could cut Clinton loose for a few days to… just be Clinton. I don’t think the former president can operate in any other way.