What Obama Needs to Do in Denver: An Insightful View

One of the best and most insightful pieces of analysis of how Barack Obama can emerge from Denver on Thursday night with the lead he ought to have by now has just been published over at The Huffington Post. Penned by Drew Westen, this long and well-organized think piece lists five things Obama has to do in Denver to secure his rightful place as the clear leader in the race for the White House now entering its real stage (these are all direct quotations from Westen's piece):

1. He needs to tell Americans his story in a way that allows them to identify with him, and to make clear that he understands their stories, their pain, and their aspirations for their families.
2. He needs to offer an indictment of the Republican Party and the Bush presidency, and to make clear that the economic insecurity of middle class families, the spiraling cost of gas and health care, and the indifference to future generations that has produced our current energy crisis is not an accident but is a direct result of a radical ideology that has proven dangerous, reckless, and now discredited.
3. He has to build a compelling case--a sustained and compelling emotional argument--for why John McCain should not be President.
4. [He needs to] address head-on the stories told by the other side that have eroded positive feelings toward him among a large swath of the electorate and that have kept so many people undecided in a race that should be all but over. In particular, he needs to address the stories that he is just an empty celebrity, that he is an elitist, and that he is not really American, patriotic, or "one of us."
5. [He must make] this election a referendum on the Bush-McCain years and whether we can afford any more of them.

The details are delicious and the thinking clear and focused.