Barack Obama’s big challenge

last updated 8 January 2015

This is Barack Obama’s big moment, said The New York Times in an editorial. The Clintons have left the stage, and now it’s up to the Democratic presidential nominee to explain why he’s the one who can solve this country’s problems. He’ll have to go beyond declaring that President Bush’s eight years have been a disaster, and “make the case unequivocally that his ideas and his party’s ideas are the best way to recover from that disaster.”

Obama isn’t running against Bush, said Gary Andres in The Washington Times. Obama will turn off the very swing voters he needs to defeat John McCain if he uses his big acceptance speech at the Democrats' convention to hammer the spurious “McCain is Bush” mantra. “Americans despise attack politics,” and that’s what Obama’s attempt to link McCain to Bush amounts to.