A Memo to Senator Obama

But the message of change, of a new world order, is unsettling to some voters, particularly older ones. Far from Appalachia, there are some disturbing pockets of fearfulness. A New York Times front-page story last week was headlined AS OBAMA HEADS TO FLORIDA, MANY OF ITS JEWS HAVE DOUBTS. Some whom the Times interviewed suspected that Obama was not sufficiently pro-Israel, while others mentioned the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. fiasco or Michelle Obama's remark that your electoral success made her "for the first time" in her life "really proud" of her country. The article quoted Ruth Grossman, the 80-year-old resident of a gated community, saying, "They'll pick on the minister thing, they'll pick on the wife, but the major issue is color." Grossman told the Times she is thinking of voting for Obama, but said, "I keep my mouth shut." True, only 5 percent of Florida voters are Jewish. But you need them: while Clinton currently leads McCain in Florida, you trail him.

The Internet has been a sluice for lies and distortions about your religion and background. It is widely and falsely rumored that you are Muslim (in the NEWSWEEK Poll, 11 percent of voters believe you are); that you chose to be sworn in to the Senate using a Qur'an rather than a Bible, and that you refuse to place your hand over your heart for the singing of the national anthem because, you are imagined to have said, "the anthem conveys a warlike message." As a recent post on Politico.com points out, there is a "Genealogy of Barack Hussein Obama" making the Web rounds, helpfully illustrated by pictures of your dark-complexioned relatives dressed in African garb. The message is not subtle: it says that Barack Obama is not a "real American."

You must confront this slur, with more force than you have shown so far. If you do not, you will be defined by your enemies and the Web, a dangerous combination. You movingly told your life story in a book that's become a best seller. And lately, you have wisely taken to often wearing an American-flag lapel pin. It would help to be seen venerating your white mother and grandparents as well as your black father. Your mother is a sympathetic figure, fighting to raise a child out of poverty. It is a good thing that this summer you are scheduled to go to the grave site of your grandfather, a World War II vet whose coffin was draped with the American flag when he died in 1992. Voters need to know that he, much more than your father who lived far away, was the man who raised you. Voters need to know that you are definitely not John Kerry, who was raised to wealth and privilege, an Ivy Leaguer educated, for a time, at a Swiss boarding school.

Still, telling your story can be a little difficult. The fact is, your father's family was Kenyan; you grew up, in part, abroad in Indonesia (and Hawaii, which is a foreign land to some), and you went to Harvard. You can't rouse a crowd like Willie Stark did in "All the King's Men," calling them "hicks," knowing that they will love you because you are a hick, too. You cannot pretend to be something that you are not. Your staff is preparing speeches on patriotism; you should have no problem proving your love for a country that has nurtured and rewarded you. Throwing a grand ole Fourth of July barbecue also sends the right message, and campaign aides say you may make a speech about gun ownership, reaffirming your belief in the right to bear arms. But don't overdo it and pretend you love to hunt and fish. Men and women raised in hardscrabble country can spot a phony quicker than a squirrel can spot an acorn.

It's also important for you not to play the race card yourself. You can't imply, or be seen to imply, that anyone who criticizes you is a racist, closeted or otherwise. When you implied that Geraldine Ferraro was racist for saying that you are "lucky" to be where you are in this election, that you wouldn't be where you were if you weren't African-American, she was indignant. It is a good bet that many whites (and maybe some blacks) agreed with her. Whites resent being accused of racism for remarks they regard as innocent or innocuous. It's hard to think of what would turn off whites quicker than playing the thin-skinned victim. One of the strengths of your campaign has been to get past the old-style politics practiced by the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and other "race men" who use skin color as a political tool.

You will never get the real racists to come around. But you have to convince some of your doubters that, whatever your skin color or background, you will be on their side. Most important, you have to convince them that they will be better off during an Obama presidency than a McCain presidency. So far, you have spoken of your hopes and dreams for America in soaring, but somewhat general, or vague, terms. Your message of hope and change has moved many voters. But to win the support of the skeptics, you are going to need to offer more substance—to show how you will make them safer and better off than John McCain will.

You are asking the wary to trust you, so your promises, and policy, must ring true. Your opponents will make gaffes, and you'll be able to capitalize on them. Last week Clinton referred to Robert F. Kennedy's June 1968 assassination in defending her decision to keep her campaign going. (She later said she regretted if her comments were "in any way offensive.") But it's a tricky business. You can't seem petty or muddle your message of running a different kind of campaign. You wisely resisted the temptation to pander on gas prices, to scorn McCain and Clinton for offering a gas-tax "holiday" this summer that would probably not do much to lower gas prices—but could put more greenhouse emissions in the air and loot into the bank accounts of the petro-dictators. But you have much to offer lower-income voters. It is a fact that more poor and uninsured people will get better health care under your plan than McCain's. (McCain has called your plan too expensive and said it would saddle the government with an "entitlement program … that Washington will let get out of control.") The Republican candidate's answer to the vanishing of jobs offshore is to tell voters that, in the long run, free trade is good for them. You can promise to bring those jobs home with tougher trade policies. McCain wants to continue the Bush tax cuts; you will raise taxes on the rich to pay for benefits that will primarily help the middle and lower class.