Charlotte Sometimes

And now it's time for the DNC fandango in Charlotte. How do you sell what the President and his party have on offer? A few guesses:

At a minimum, you'll get a continuation of the Emmanuel Goldstein treatment for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. The attacks are getting almost unhinged at this point. If you doubt that, you might consider reading this broadside from Maureen Dowd:

The stage show looked like America, but the convention hall did not. The crowd seemed like the sanctuary of a minority — economically wounded capitalists in shades from eggshell to ecru, cheering the man from Bain and trying to fathom why they’re not running the country anymore. The speakers ranted about an America in decline, but the audience reflected a party in decline.

I don't know about you, but I really enjoy it when a white person upbraids other white people for being white. That's some kick-butt marketing. While I expect that diversity will be a theme, bashing white people won't be too much on the podium this week.

You won't see a lot of vision, because at this point the purpose of the election is simply winning. This drives purported Republican David Brooks nuts, which is why he wrote this:

But, mostly, I wish he’d be for something. I wish he’d rise above the petty tactical considerations that have shrunk him over the past two years. I wish he’d finally define what he stands for. A liberal populist? A Clintonian moderate? At some point, you have to choose.

Four years ago, Obama said we could no longer postpone tackling the big problems. But now he seems driven by a fear of defeat. His proposals seem bite-size. If Obama can’t tell us the big policy thing he wants to do, he doesn’t deserve a second term.

You would think that a guy who got his undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago would recognize a Chicago politician, but apparently not.

Will the president run on his successes? It's hard to see how. The greatest accomplishment of his term is passing Obamacare, which is still largely unpopular. He promised to bring unemployment down to around 6% or thereabouts and there's no chance we'll be at that level by election day. Closing Gitmo? Still open and not even mentioned anymore. I hear Osama bin Laden is dead -- that's something, I suppose.

I think perhaps he ought to choose any five random topics from this list. That might be the best solution. Just don't tell Maureen Dowd about it.