And What Change is that Mr. Obama?

“No more Carl Rove politics.” “Change you can believe in.” Sound familiar? If you have been following American Politics it should appear to follow pretty closely to the whole image of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama. From Obama, we have heard the same old cheesy lines over and over again regarding how he represents change…but then again, doesn’t everybody? This message might have worked against a Mit Romney “I love America as it is” type of candidate, but against McCain simply claiming some ideological benefit is not going to do anything but start to make people question whether Obama is merely composed of false hopes. The problem with Obama is he does not stand for anything. He is the type of person that will outright avoid the loaded political questions, whereas McCain is very upfront on where he stands. Sure, McCain has made some mild flipped flops on issues such as tax cuts, but at least he will express his views in terms of policies. On the other hand, who knows where Obama stands. All we can assume is that he will take a very liberal platform.

A few weeks ago somebody asked Obama what individuals can do to help the oil crisis and Obama mentioned that people can inflate their tires to the appropriate dimensions and immediately the McCain campaign made a mockery of such a thing. McCain and his followers decided to pass out air gauges that said “Obama’s Energy Policy.” Once Obama caught word of this, Obama tried to do a two for one: he denied that his energy policy was to inflate tires as well as defended inflating tires. This approach may have actually worked if he actually detailed in his speech what his energy policy consisted of, but instead he avoided the policy issues all together. Obama tried to retaliate and made fun of the Republicans stating: “It’s like Republicans take pride in being ignorant.” Congratulations Obama, I am not a Republican and you still may have just lost my vote. Obama is very charismatic and a pleasure to listen to which makes him a widely followed candidate, however, he needs to find out what type of campaign he wants to run and he needs to choose fast. If Obama is going to make a mockery of the opposing candidate he is likely going to lose a lot of support particularly among the moderate swing voters who are key to win the election. Obama may lose the hard-line Republicans regardless, but McCain has a maverick appeal that may give him added support among moderates. These are the votes Obama needs to fight for, not simply joke around with some buddies who are going to vote for you anyway. You do that and you may have just lose the key to the White House.

Obama must begin to mention his specific goals as opposed to his general goals. We all know the generics, but how exactly is he going to change America? As of now Obama seems little more than a big mouth. As the old adage goes, “you can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?” This is the ultimate question that most people would like to at least get some indication of before going to the polling booths.