Playing To Your Weaknesses

There seem to be some indications this week that the conflict in the Caucasus region is having an effect on the types of candidates that Obama is vetting for his second spot. While just a week ago it seemed that most candidates on the shortlist were without defense expertise (the exception being Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee), names like Gen. Wesley Clark, former Sen. Sam Nunn, and even Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel have all been floated in recent days.

While it's far from clear that all of these candidates are even interested in running (Nunn has been ambivalent, Clark has endorsed Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for the job), the shift in tone can be explained as much by recent events as it can by Mr. McCain's attempt to exploit recent events. Despite his inability to pronounce Georgian President Nicola Saakashvili's name, and the fact that much of the information used to establish his position was lifted from Wikipedia, McCain has been campaigning on his unimpeachable expertise when it comes to questions of Georgia and Russia. The flip-side, as always, is the never-quite-voiced implication that Obama couldn't find them on a map. Eyeing the weakness, Obama may be shifting the criteria for his VP selection to counter.

This is just plain lousy strategy. In the same way that Obama will never be able to “out-hardcore” McCain when it comes to crazy-ass, irresponsible foreign policy, he will never be able to select a Democrat who won't be tagged immediately as a wimp. Witness the transfiguration of John F. Kerry, Vietnam Vet and three-time Purple Heart winner, who became a baugette-eating fairy-boy nancy-pants frog just days after winning the nomination. It could have been Wesley Clark on that ticket, or even John Rambo, but if he'd have had a (D) after his name, he'd have been cast as a fag.

The road to victory lies not in trying to out-Republican the Republicans by playing to Democratic weaknesses, but by shifting the dialog away from those areas and toward historic strengths. We are all Georgians? Yeah, just like we were all Afghani in 2001 and Iraqi in 2003. Let's try, “we are all Americans, who need to be more worried about heating our homes this winter and affording the medicines that keep us alive than basking in the idea that we might get to fight the Communists for another five decades.”

Americans don't know where Georgia is and don't really care; Obama should not allow the issue to become front-and-center, where it can erode his advantages. Nor should he select a VP whose talents are limited to this arena. There are simply more treacherous challenges facing America today, and it's going to be awful hard to make that point when right out of the gate you concede it.