President Obama’s first challenge in tomorrow night’s town hall debate has been crystal clear ever since he allowed Mitt Romney to Etch A Sketch his way through their first encounter: Follow Joe Biden’s lead by calling out Romney on his inconsistencies and lies, while highlighting the radicalism of the Republicans’ real agenda. The Prospect’s Paul Waldman offers some sage advice: “He needs a single phrase that he will repeat every time he's refuting a Romney falsehood. It could be something slogan-y, like ‘That's another Romney Reinvention,’ or could be something simple, like ‘Once again, Governor Romney thinks he can fool you and get away with it.’ It almost doesn't matter what it is, so long as he repeats it every time.”

But there’s another, broader challenge for Obama—and it’s one that relates to the central flaw of the president’s entire campaign. While some voters understand what will be lost if Romney wins (Medicaid, Medicare, health-care reform, sane foreign policy, the list goes on), even Obama’s own supporters don’t have a clear sense of what would be gained by four more years. The campaign slogan is “Forward.” But to what and where, exactly? As a study released today by pollsters Stan Greenberg and James Carville shows, Americans are itching to hear something bold, something "changey" if not "hopey": “By more than a 2-to-1 margin (67 percent to 29 percent) voters say we need to make major changes to solve America’s problems—62 percent agree with that strongly.” 

There’s at least one big idea up Obama's sleeve that he could gainfully re-launch tomorrow night: The American Jobs Act, a mini-stimulus that according to Moody Analytics would create 1.9 million jobs and add two percent to the gross domestic product. The bill was blocked by Senate Republicans last fall, which makes it a doubly appealing proposal for Obama to inject into the campaign. It’s a way to indicate that he does have some big stuff in mind, while simultaneously refreshing people's memories about the wages of Republican obstructionism. But whatever second-term plans he chooses to highlight, the bottom line is this: Obama can't regain the momentum in this campaign merely by exposing Romney's B.S.; he also has to bring his own ideas and core convictions back into the mix.

Bob Moser and Jaime Fuller, American Prospect online, October 15.