[This article continues a series begun a few months ago, when I looked at the five Democratic candidates for president who weren't in the top three. This article and two previous articles examine the three frontrunners. This is mostly a critique of their web pages, for informational purposes. Campaign tactics and strategy will be addressed later. The three frontrunners are being profiled in alphabetic order, as I used for the other five candidates.

You can read about the other five in my previous articles (Part 1 and Part 2). The first of the frontrunner articles ran Tuesday, about Hillary Clinton. The second article, on John Edwards, ran yesterday.]

Barack Obama

http://www.barackobama.com/

Barack Obama is trying to run a very optimistic campaign. Although I haven't seen a full speech by him, from all reports he is an impressive orator. He is also positioning himself as the best agent for change in the Democratic race.

His problem may wind up being "trying to be all things to all people." Now, he's admittedly got to walk quite a number of tightropes during his campaign, some external and some internal. The mainstream media seemingly cannot get over obsessing whether Obama is "too black," "not black enough," or "just the right shade of black." This is a silly thing to obsess over, especially because the question is almost always posed by a white journalist. Every time I've seen him answer this stupid question he actually looks relaxed and comfortable about who he is, which just makes the journalist asking him appear petty and clueless. The real question, which the media doesn't usually bother to ask: "Is America ready to elect a black candidate?" That would require a bit of soul-searching on the voters' part, which is probably why it doesn't get asked as much.

The second tightrope Obama's got to walk is whether he runs his campaign as a frontrunner, or as a challenger. At the moment, he's a little of both. He raised more money than Hillary Clinton last quarter, but Hillary still dominates the polls -- by as much as 20 points or more. So Obama's got to decide whether to "play it safe," avoid contentious issues, and let others attack him; or whether to go on the offensive against the Clinton juggernaut.

The last tightrope he's got to walk is between running a sunny and positive campaign, wooing churchgoers -- or, at some point, having to go negative. Even if he decides not to go negative, he's going to have to be more aggressive to actually win the nomination. Now, negative works, in many instances -- that's why politicians do it to get elected. But in going negative, Obama could disillusion the people of faith he is targeting. So it'll be a tightrope for him to walk indeed.

Obama's website, like all the frontrunners, is very professionally laid out, with lots of bells and whistles. He has a lot of information written on his stances on the issues, he provides copies of his speeches, and there's lots of video. His blogging section seems well-thought out. The web design of the main page is a little "busy" for my tastes, but that's a matter of my own personal opinion, not a factual complaint.

Looking through the extensive writing he has done on the issues, though, leaves you a bit wanting for more information. The mainstream media has been knocking Obama for being a lightweight or an empty suit; and while I wouldn't go that far, his issues are a little lacking. Part of this is due to yet another tightrope for Obama to walk -- that he's not experienced enough to be president. While his writing on the issues struggles to overcome this perception by mentioning all the legislation he has co-sponsored as Senator and earlier in his career, after reading for awhile, you start to notice that for many (if not most) of the bills he's boasting about, there is no mention of whether it became law, or even passed the Senate. So while a freshman Senator may offer up lots of good ideas, most never make it into law -- which further reinforces the perception that Obama may not have the experience to win.

There's one other intangible you get while reading -- a lot of his writing about the issues concentrates almost exclusively on what he's done in the recent past about this issue or that. There is little sweeping talk about what he wants to do in the future, which is what presidential candidates are supposed to do. Now, this isn't true for all of his issues. He's passionate about some of them (health care reform, for instance, and fighting poverty, among others), and his writings on these issues do soar to the usual presidential campaign level of rhetoric.

To tell you the truth, I found this to be a surprise. Obama is, as I mentioned, praised for his speeches and his oratory, so I expected almost the opposite -- a lot of fluff, soaring words, noble concepts... but without much substance. He does lapse into such content-free mush here and there, but he actually does so less than his two main rivals. As I said, this was somewhat of a surprise, given what I had heard.

But instead, a lot of his policy positions read more like a political résumé -- lots of citations of bills he had sponsored, and other things from his past, but little of "here's what I will do in the future, as president." This is not to say he doesn't have good and innovative ideas. There are many of these, but you have to wade through a lot of citations to get to them.

Some of his major information is extremely out of date, as well. The most unforgivable of these is his page on Iraq. Here is the entire text (other than quotes) of this page:

Before the war in Iraq ever started, Senator Obama said that it was wrong in its conception. In 2002, then Illinois State Senator Obama said Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to the United States and that invasion would lead to an occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. Since then, Senator Obama has laid out a plan on the way forward in Iraq that has largely been affirmed by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton.

At the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in November 2005, Senator Obama called for: (1) a reduction in the number of U.S. troops; (2) a time frame for a phased withdrawal; (3) the Iraqi government to make progress on forming a political solution; (4) improved reconstruction efforts to restore basic services in Iraq; and (5) engaging the international community, particularly key neighboring states and Arab nations, to become more involved in Iraq. In January 2006 he traveled to Iraq and met with senior U.S. military commanders, Iraqi officials and U.S. troops in Baghdad and Fallujah.

Senator Obama introduced legislation in January 2007 to offer a responsible alternative to President Bush's failed escalation policy. The legislation commences redeployment of U.S. forces no later than May 1, 2007 with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008 -- a date consistent with the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's expectations. The plan allows for a limited number of U.S. troops to remain in Iraq as basic force protection, to engage in counter-terrorism and to continue the training of Iraqi security forces. If the Iraqis are successful in meeting the 13 benchmarks for progress laid out by the Bush Administration, this plan also allows for the temporary suspension of the redeployment, provided Congress agrees that the benchmarks have been met.

I'm sorry, but that's not enough. Obama is, after all, a sitting United States Senator, and several things have happened in the Senate since January which should be addressed, but are not. This may be an example of playing things way WAY too safely -- waiting to see which way the wind blows before standing up for any current plan.

What's surprising is this should be one of Obama's strongest issues -- he was right about Iraq from the beginning, and it is a defining issue for him since Clinton and Edwards both voted for the war. But all he has to say about it are those three weak paragraphs.

I have to say, after seeing all his position papers, I agree with those people who would like to believe in the whole Obama dream, but are still waiting for some meat to be put on the bare bones -- what will the Obama dream actually be defined as? Count me among the many who are still waiting for the answer to that question.

Washington Post stories mentioning Obama this year : 588

"Contribute" buttons on main web page : 3 (counts one for his "store")

Money raised in the first quarter of 2007 : $25 million

Money raised in the second quarter of 2007 : $31 million

Biggest weakness : Surprisingly, not the color of his skin. Obama's big weakness for the time being is (in the immortal words of Gertrude Stein describing Oakland), "There is no 'there' there."

Interesting quotes from his web page :

"I...believe that every American has the right to affordable health care. I believe that the millions of Americans who can't take their children to a doctor when they get sick have that right...We now face an opportunity - and an obligation - to turn the page on the failed politics of yesterday's health care debates. It's time to bring together businesses, the medical community, and members of both parties around a comprehensive solution to this crisis, and it's time to let the drug and insurance industries know that while they'll get a seat at the table, they don't get to buy every chair."

[Someone in the Obama campaign likes to take pictures of him with LOTS of whitespace. On his main Issues page, check out the photos for "Energy and the Environment" and "Cleaning Up Washington's Culture of Corruption."]