So Booman.... have you informed Obamas' handlers yet?  I think they should have your expertise and I really do think it is a great plan.

Several of us froggies have mentioned how much we'd like to see Obama get on a train again and do another whistlestop tour, emphasizing trains as the interstate transportation mode of the future. Maybe as part of the second ring you mentioned -- not too early when he's going hither and yon, and not too late when he knows where he needs to shore up the election.

I'm doing a panel on Blogs and the Media at VCon, Oct 4, Vancouver BC

Will people vote for him just because he visited their city?  Or because they like at least a part of his message?  (No candidate is perfectly in synch with anybody outside his own household.  And I bet there are arguments over the respective dinner tables.)

He is choosing a theme for each day of the convention... that is a good starting point.  There are other themes that need attention, too, and religion is done-to-death.  How about the economic and the environmental and the constitutional crises?

He could spend a week on education and opportunity, tieing that to the college visits.  That is the main escape route from poverty and hopelessness.  He might mention that education is more than job training, but nurturing and growth of a curious mind.

A week on energy, traveling through Alaska and Montana. (I bet Jon Tester would love to host a discussion on alternative sources!)  Maybe slide down to Yellowstone to discuss geothermal potential and California to look at the wind farms.  Schwarzenegger might even join him for a talk about the balance between pollution and energy... here in California we have geysers, dams, oil, coal, nuclear, and solar so it would be a good place to evaluate a bundle of sources (and that manufactured energy crisis has not been forgotten).  Mention infrastructure and The Grid.

That leads nicely to a week on the environment.  Wars over water will be nastier and more vicious than wars over oil.  70,000 chinook salmon died due to Cheney's interference.  So how can we ensure enough of the resources we need while protecting biodiversity for future generations?  How to balance cultural rights (indian whalers) with preserving the last of the great mammals?  How can we get the oil companies to clean up after their spills if Exxon skated out of responsibility for the Valdez mess, and why should we let them near any more pristine habitat?  Air pollution, water pollution, contaminated food... we are bacteria in a petri dish killing ourselves with byproduct.. but we are smart bacteria and maybe we can avoid choking on our waste.

The week in the rustbelt down to Appalachia could end in North Carolina or similar place with a tech center... showing how jobs lost to manufacturing can be replaced with other jobs given the right environment and incentives.  I might bring up Denmark as a country with good job replacement training and what it would take to get similar training here so that people fearful of losing jobs know they won't lose everything, but might step into another line of work.

From that I'd segue into a technology week: how can we invest in something other than war toys.  We can design killer robots and unmanned drones... but not something to safely mine or even clean house?  The Japanese have better water-efficient bathrooms.  The Europeans have better cheaper broadband.  We ought to be leading the edge of consumer electronics and household appliances... that would provide jobs and money and satisfaction as well as raising the quality of life.  For what we spent destroying Iraq, our infrastructure could be vastly improved.  I'd also put in a word about what the space program has brought into our lives: ceramics and fancy metal alloys and remote health sensors... Florida: the Kennedy Space Center is full of workers who'd love to show off what they've developed and how the inventions are now taken for granted.  [I was at their Open House ages ago.]  Kennedy said that we'd put a man on the moon within the decade... 8 years.  Obama can inspire us, too.  8 years is plenty of time if you have a committment.

A week on health issues... visit Walter Reed and a retirement community and a hospital and a homeless shelter.  Why is America paying more per person for health care and yet getting such shoddy results from the for-profit insurance companies and hospitals dumping folks who can't pay even more?  Being pro-life ought to mean being in favor of a healthy life for all of us.

A week on diversity and freedom and choice.  Perhaps a visit to a Mennonite or similar community, the Navajo reservation, and one of the many Chinatown/Japantown enclaves.  A California mission or the King's highway linking the state, Germantown in Ohio and perhaps some Scottish or Irish event (check calendar).  We are all Americans.  This might diffuse some of the immigration issue, since even the Indians, the First People, came here from some place else.  All looking for a better life.  There is a poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty and the Chinese wrote poems on the walls of their detainee quarters at Angel Island, thousands of miles away.  I'd have a talk about how America acquired such a vast landscape: wars, yes, but also leasehold and purchase.  We might have buyer's remorse about Iraq, but not about Alaska or the Louisiana Purchase.  Securing America's borders doesn't mean extending them around the globe through martial conquest.  Real security is good neighbors helping each other.

A week on government and Americanism and the constitution and separation of powers is necessary.  I'd start in Philadelphia where the men argued about the very nature of our government... show the room where Jefferson wrote those carefully-crafted phrases and the tavern where they repaired socially during the convention.  What is a citizen?  Requirements, duties, rights, privileges.  What does it mean to be an American?  We need to get our integrity and international reputation back out of the gutter, so showing a spot of pride and showing why the Constitution is so vital... government officials do NOT take oaths to any man, but to a document that enshrines our basic law.  We are not ruled by whim or secret order, but by law.  He needs to say so.  This might be a good concluding theme.
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So enough blathering.  I think he needs to look at the audiences and their concerns, but unite each group into a greater theme.  Any politician can do a whistle stop.  A statesman knows why he is stopping and plans his route for the bigger picture.

Ohio, Ohio, Ohio.

He needs to nail down Ohio while he's got some convention buzz. Remember, McCain will be getting some buzz right before early voting begins.

If Obama wins Ohio, he wins the White House. As long as it stays close, he needs to concentrate his effort there. Treat it like Iowa during the primaries, make phone calls to school principals, etc.

Michigan and/or Florida in the itinerary?