It's up to Obama to erase the doubt
IT'S STILL all about Barack Obama.
Is he ready to be president? Does he care enough about ordinary people to deliver for them?
The buzz about Obama's pick for vice president - expected any day now - is irrelevant background noise. No one votes for second banana. People vote for commander in chief. Leadership and empathy at the top of the ticket matter much more than any consultant's notion of balance at the bottom.
John McCain used the summer well. The Republican raised enough doubt about Obama's judgment and ability to relate to average citizens to keep the two men close in the polls. One poll even puts McCain ahead by five points with likely voters. For McCain that is no small victory, given overwhelming voter discontent with the general direction of the country, and specifically with fellow Republican George W. Bush.
In July and August, the McCain campaign has worked hard at painting the picture Republicans want voters to see when they shake the sand out of their sandals and focus on the Democratic nominee.
It's a variation of the same theme Republicans always use against the opposition: Democrat as ultra-liberal, naive, tax-and-spend elitist. Obama will let Russia roll over Georgia just like he's letting the Clintons roll over him in Denver. He will raise taxes, no matter how much Americans are spending to fill their gas tanks.
In 2008, McCain has an added mission. He needs to turn Obama's eloquence into something unappealing.
Republicans didn't have to worry about the inspirational qualities of Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, or John Kerry. At their worst, they were even less eloquent than their GOP opponents. But Obama with a crowd is magic that must be neutralized, and McCain did so by equating Obama with vacuous celebrity.
Obama helped McCain on that score, by overreaching on his trip abroad. He wanted voters to look at him and see a president. They did, but in Germany they also saw the cult of personality overtake a presidential candidate before any American cast a vote.
Worldwide adulation will be welcome, once Obama wins. But first he must win; and hard as it is for some die-hard Democrats to imagine after the last eight years of the Bush-Cheney White House, Obama can still lose.
He can lose if the debate over the Iraq war boils down to the success of the surge versus the mistake of the invasion. He can lose if McCain goes unchallenged when equating withdrawal from Iraq with defeat.
He can lose if he lets McCain frame the energy debate as drill, drill, drill. Obama had the guts to stand up to Hillary Clinton when she got behind a gas tax holiday as a way to ease pain at the pump. But Obama quickly caved in on offshore drilling, making McCain look like a problem-solver, even though offshore drilling is anything but an immediate solution to rising fuel prices.
He can lose if he keeps responding to debate questions by saying the answer is "above my pay grade." He did that last week when asked by the Rev. Rick Warren to define the beginning of life, feeding the Republican script that Obama is not up to calling the shots in the Oval Office.
He can lose if he is cast as an abortion-rights extremist, a theme that Republicans are also pushing. A focus on abortion would give the GOP a wedge issue it can use to undercut Obama on the so-called "values" front.
He can lose if the election is about his name, skin color, or place of worship; or about his friends and associates, and, by extension, about his patriotism.
It's up to Obama now, as it was during primary season. He rode change and hope to the nomination. Then, he let the McCain campaign begin to redefine "change" from something the country instinctively desires to something it could fear. Obama has to remind voters what they don't like about the Bush administration, what they won't like about a McCain administration, and what they will like about his own.
Only Obama can sell Obama to the American people.
Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com. 