What Barack Obama Needs to Win

(As inspired by Mark Halperin).

- To speak to a national television audience at least once a week through a variety of venues.

- To speak to age 18-30 voters on a regular basis, through mechanicsms such as online chats that you host at your website.

- To develop a 30-second soundbyte answer to the question of high gas prices that everybody can recite by rote.

- To embody some of Bill Clinton, let your guard down, and speak to people's economic pain every day.

- To embody some of Hillary Clinton, develop more than one gear, and keep the McCain team off-balance.

- To speak to the importance of your role as a father, and to use it to highlight the moral imperative that we face in keeping the environment safe for our children.

- To pick some quick-and-dirty populist pieces of legislation that appeal to particular swing constituencies, such as the Airline Passenger's Bill of Rights.

- To determine whether Hillary Clinton is able and willing to be a high-profile surrogate for you and, if so, to deploy her on the trail immediately.

- To get some better advertising people, and run more ads less often rather than fewer ads more often.

- To quit being so deferential to John McCain.

- To let the press in all the way, except FOX NEWS.

- To avoid the temptation to pick a Vice President by focus group.

- To make some high-profile admission of an error in judgment that you made, and to get your self-effacing sense of humor back.

- To highlight an issue like your support for gays in the military that polls better than the Republicans realize, and attempt to lure them into re-fighting the culture wars.

- To continue going after uncharted ground like Montana, North Dakota and Indiana where the McCain campaign can't spend resources without losing face.

- To poll the hell out of the cellphone problem and determine if it gives you an advantage, and if so, in which states.

- To quit acting like you have a 10-point lead. You don't.

Note: This is analysis, not advice.