Obama’s problem is that he doesn’t have a core.
The reason for the “uhs” and the “umms” is that he’s trying to do lawyerly parsing in his head on the fly, and he’s not parsing fast enough to keep up with his mouth.
The conversation goes something like this:
He thinks: “I think…no wait, that’s not strong enough…We believe..yeah, that’s it…”
He says: “We believe…uh…”
He thinks: “Now what? What do you mean now what? Don’t you know? Know what? What was the question? Oh yeah…”
He says “um…”
He thinks “What did Axelrod tell me our position was? He didn’t. Wasn’t there something about ‘Hope’ in the answer? I’m sure there was..’
He says “that we are the hope…”
He thinks “Hope for what? Well I can’t say anything specific, people would be able to nail me down on one side of the issue or another. Better say something noncommittal and give myself plausible deniability no matter what they say I said. What should I say though?”
He says “uh…uh…”
He thinks “But it was a yes or no question…Shut up…Only a racist would ask a yes or no question. Damn racists, trying to bait me like that…”
He says “umm…”
He thinks “I’ll show them who’s smarter. I used to organize communities for God’s sake. I’ll give them the answer I want. What do I want? To not lose, Michelle would be soooo pissed! And she’s not that nice when she’s in a good mood…Yeah, but I mean besides the obvious…”
He says “err…”
He thinks “Hope and change. Axelrod says that’s our message. Forget the policy: if they found out what the policy was they’d never vote for us…Stick with the hope and change, and let ‘em chew on that for a while.”
He says “and change that we’ve been waiting for…”
He thinks “HA! Let ‘em try to figure that one out…::smug internal grin::”
He says “Next question?”
(I originally posted this in the comments at Althouse..)
