Memo to Obama: This Election Is About the Voters

One of my very favorite Americans, former Vice President Walter F. "Fritz" Mondale, began his doomed 1984 challenge to President Ronald Reagan with a forgettable sound-bite: "I am ready to be president now."

Launching her campaign for the 2008 presidential nomination, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton regularly told audiences: "I'm in it to win, and that's what I intend to do."

The identical mistake was made in the messages sent, a quarter century apart, by these two Democrats: A presidential campaign — especially a successful campaign that will enable the winner to lead the nation — is not about the candidate; a successful presidential campaign is about the voters. It's also obviously about the country, the future and the differences with your opponent.

From the press schedule of the Democrats' 2008 convention, to begin Aug. 25 in Denver, it looks like Barack Obama's campaign could be about to make the big mistake — John Kerry's did in 2004 at the Boston convention — of making the convention almost exclusively about the candidate. The Boston convention, through the moving testimony of the men with whom he served in combat, told us much about John Kerry's courage and personal story, but too little about how the lives of the voters would be different, and better, with him in the White House, instead of George W. Bush.

For a coveted prime-time speaking role on the convention's first night, Obama's wife Michelle will be introduced by her brother, Craig Robinson, who is the basketball coach at Oregon State. Also scheduled to appear at the convention is the nominee's half-sister, Maya Soetero-Ng.

All are expected to speak about Barack Obama, the brother-in-law, the husband and father, and the brother.

This is the appropriate time for one of my favorite anecdotes. In April 1945, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Ga., a train made the 700-mile journey carrying the remains back to Washington, where six white horses drew his funeral caisson through the thronged streets of the nation's capital to the White House.

Along the route, the crowds were more than 20 deep and grieving. One well-dressed man who was almost inconsolable, with tears streaming down his cheeks, was noticed by a reporter. The reporter approached the man, remarked upon how grief-stricken he was, and asked, "Excuse me, sir, but did you know President Roosevelt personally?" "No," answered the man, "I did not know President Roosevelt. But he knew me."

Yes, it is important that voters learn and understand who Barack Obama is, what he believes and why, and what makes him angry. They need to know that, in spite of the difference of his background and his name, his values are their values, he feels the same way they do about their family, their country, their faith.

But to achieve all or any of that, Obama must — through the convention — let people know that he knows who they are, that it is from their ranks that he comes and that it is on their side that he stands. The real mission for Obama and his convention is not to get them to know him; the mission instead is to convince voters that he knows and cares deeply about them and their fate, their family and their future.

Will the union member in Wilkes-Barre and the veteran's widow in Dayton both be able to say of Barack Obama, "He knows me"?

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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COPYRIGHT 2008 MARK SHIELDS