What voters want from Obama

Matt Yglesias writes:

Joe Klein visited a focus group:

“Change” as a theme is over. Too vague. And Obama’s rhetoric has begun to seriously cut against him. “No more oratory,” one woman said. “Give us details.”

I always wonder about this stuff. I mean, it’s inconceivable to me that this woman is genuinely yearning to learn more about the details of Obama’s policy agenda. If she actually wanted to know, she could, you know, look into it. She could learn all about the differences between auctioning emissions permits and giving them away, about the implications of having the federal government provide reinsurance for catastrophic medical expenses, about the case for a permanent R&D tax credit, etc., etc. But all indications are that most people find politics boring, and policy details duller still. And swing voters, which is what this was a focus group of, are least interested of all.

My guess is that people’s self-reports in these kind of situations are almost valueless. People want to express opinions that they think will be validated by others. The idea that Obama isn’t specific enough is both widespread and sounds high-minded, so it’s something that people looking to say something bad about him say even though I don’t see any evidence that his speeches are less specific than anyone else’s.

UPDATE: For example, later in the same post, Klein observes that “given a list of 31 personal attributes the next President might have and asked to pick the eight most important” only one person cited “agrees with me about the issues.” But if you don’t care about whether or not the candidate agrees with you about the issues, then why would you want to hear details about his positions on the issues?

But if Yglesias is right - if the same people who are irritated by Obama's vagueness are uninterested in the policy nitty-gritty - what do voters want from Obama?

My guess is that they want something in-between. Obama has told us he intends to bring change, but he hasn't yet told us what kind of change. That doesn't mean a laundry-list of policy initiatives. It means explaining, in an ideologically coherent and conceptually simple manner, Obama's strategy for turning the country around.

Reagan had that kind of simple strategy - "less government" and "tough on communism." Privatize stuff, lower taxes, cut spending, deregulate, unleash entrepreneurial energy, stand up to the USSR. He ended up not doing all of those things, and some of those things ended up not working. But voters got the message.

"Change" and "hope" are not enough, nor are laundry lists. Obama needs a strategy.