President Barack Obama will deliver a speech to the Democratic National Convention late Thursday to accept his party's nomination for president. Former adviser to President Clinton Richard Socarides and CNN contributor Margaret Hoover weigh in on what President Barack Obama needs to do in his speech to convince both democrats and independents to vote for him in November.
“I think President Obama’s going to talk about where do we go from here. What is going to be different in these next four years, what is his plan, what is his vision for a second term,” Socarides says. “He’s got to be positive and say what is going to be new, what is going to be different.”
Hoover, a former White House appointee under the Bush Administration, argues that Obama needs to be “convincing and compelling” for both democrats and independents. “He knows he has to say what he’s going to do in the next term, but he also has to answer the implicit criticisms that many people haven’t tackled head on until Bill Clinton last night,” Hoover says. “What about the spending? Independents are concerned about the spending. What about the unemployment? 23 million people are unemployed. What are you going to do differently in the next four years?”