How Obama can be the un-Kerry in Denver

Schaller: Elaine, is there a way for a candidate to make a policy critique of his opponent at the convention? Kamarck: The one thing I was thinking of when you all were talking about this is that going into 2004 a lot of Democrats expected that the Democrat would win if by Election Day opinion against the war had changed. And one of the things that was kind of surprising was that by Election Day opinion was running against the war, not by a huge number but by slightly more than 50 percent, and yet Kerry lost.

I was at the 2004 convention and I was doing a lot of media and I took my instructions from the Kerry people to not attack Bush, and it just didn't feel right, OK? Bush was running a terrible war, things were screwed up, he'd gotten us into this war under what were certainly mistaken if not false pretenses, and frankly it just didn't feel right, the advice not to attack. And a lot of people kind of ignored it, but one or two talking heads can't make up for a thematic push at a convention. So, you know, maybe in retrospect the policy critique of the war could have been made much more strongly at the Democratic convention.

Cohen: They tried to go positive in '04, but I still think Bush did a better job at his convention of laying out a more positive image of himself than Kerry did. Even though that was the entire point of that convention, to give you a better sense of John Kerry. I don't think people walked away with that idea. I think that Obama's key goal for this speech is no longer change you can believe in, it's change you can feel comfortable with. And that really is what his biggest objective has to be for the speech at the convention. Schaller: Let's talk about the Kerry '04 convention and Michael's point and raise the question of what can go wrong with a convention. We've mostly put up a prescription for how a convention goes well and what you're supposed to do. We know the '68 convention was a disaster for the Democrats, '92 was really rancorous for the Republicans, but in more recent ones, in this era of total control, what mistakes of omission or commission did you see Bush or Kerry or Al Gore make that if you had been in charge at the convention, you would have done differently? Cohen: I have a hard time being too critical especially of Gore in 2000. I thought he was very effective at the convention. I thought Bush was even more effective, to be honest. I think what can get you out of control is when you don't present the best message possible for your candidacy and for your vision of the country. I think the Kerry '04 convention is the best example of that. And it's funny, I remember afterward, everyone said, wow, what a great convention that was. But in reality, they left themselves vulnerable by not really making the smart case against Bush. And it got us four more years. Lehane: I think there are gradations of what can go wrong. In 2004 Kerry was not able to make the race a real compare-and-contrast, up-and-down referendum on the previous four years. And I think Elaine's point was exactly right, which was there was a pretty smart and compelling policy critique that could have been made, that would have been consistent with an appropriate tone but still making clear that this race was really about a vote on Bush's leadership.

In other times, I go back to 1996 [when the media exposed Clinton advisor Dick Morris' dalliance with a prostitute]. It was something the campaign really could not control because it involved the conduct of a high-level consultant, where you had a situation break on the first or second day of the convention. I remember being bombarded by about 3,000 press calls. It's a situation, the tinderbox situation you have at these conventions, where you have the largest collection of reporters outside the gathering in Beijing right now who are bored, who don't necessarily want to cover the party line of the day and are desperate for anything that allows them to go chase a story. We went through this in '96 with the Dick Morris situation and everyone covered it. I think the Clinton campaign still did a very effective job overall at the convention. But you do have that potential that something's going to develop that you have no control over.

Kamarck: The worst thing that can happen at a convention is that it can in fact turn into an actual decision-making convention. The worst thing that can happen at a convention is that it can be real. That is almost always a harbinger of bad things to come.

So 1968, the reason there was such turmoil was because the party was in a mess and they were making real decisions at that convention and they lost. In 1972, one of the reasons McGovern went on with his acceptance speech at 3 o'clock in the morning was because there was significant intra-party strife that had to be dealt with and they lost. In 1980, when Carter and Kennedy fought to a draw at their convention, the Democrats lost. In other words, whenever one of these conventions has real business, as opposed to being a show, that's really trouble. Which is why, of course, now in the last couple of weeks, I am sure that the Obama campaign and the Hillary campaign are working very carefully on this roll-call vote on Wednesday night, because there is the potential that there could be an embarrassment there depending on what Hillary delegates do.

Schaller: This brings us to the next question, which is, how much do you anticipate that Clinton supporters could be a serious problem for Obama at the Democratic convention? Are these PUMAs [Party Unity My Ass] and Just Say No Deal people a fringe element, and is it just going to be the media paying attention to them because there's a story there but, ultimately, Hillary Clinton and her people are sitting on them? Or could this spin out of control? Kamarck: Because I was a member of the rules committee, I've been bombarded by these folks for some months now. And there are two or three major groups that send out massive numbers of e-mails each day with bizarre, unsubstantiated rumors in all of them.

I will tell you they feel like Republicans to me. The whole business smells like a Republican front. I've been through intra-party battles, Mondale and Gary Hart and Carter and Kennedy, I was in the middle of those battles and this is not the way Democrats fight each other. And so something's wrong here. Something's weird here. I don't quite believe it. Now if I get to Denver and there's a significant Hillary revolt, I'll have to eat my hat, but I think this is an Internet phenomenon. And it smells to me like a Republican front.

Cohen: I actually think this is a huge problem for Obama. I look specifically at the most recent poll from Ohio, which showed Obama's biggest weakness, his biggest problem there was actually among Democrats. About 17 percent of Democrats were not supporting him. And I think that could be a real problem for him and that's something that the convention can hopefully take care of. But I think a lot of the burden actually falls on Hillary to make peace to some extent with Obama and make sure this is as seamless and as frictionless a convention as possible.

I also think on some sort of bizarre level that it actually does suggest that a potential Hillary V.P. pick might not be the worst idea in the world.

Next page: "McCain's positive message is very much a security-oriented message, which was a great message four years ago. I'm not so sure it's a great message in 2008"