Obama needs to show he means business

For all the phoney fuss over Obama's use of porcine colloquialisms, shrewder observers detect a bigger problem with his campaign. Newsweek and MSNBC's Howard Fineman offers a good summary:

• Declining to take federal financing for the general
• Declining McCain’s offer to hold ten town hall debates
• Failing to go all the way with the Clintons (not being nicer to them)
• The 22-state strategy (wasting time in unwinnable states)
• Failing to state a sweeping, but concrete, policy idea
• Remaining trapped in professor-observer speak
• Failing to attack McCain early

Obama can turn things around; he should do more debates with McCain for example. His team simply can't afford to keep letting the McCain team define the news agenda with their pseudo-controversies. As others have said, Obama should focus on McCain, leaving surrogates to deal with any misstatements by Sarah Palin. Obama's people need to start setting the agenda, rather than allowing themselves to be put on the defensive.