What Obama Should Talk About Tonight

CNN's David Gergen said something rare and wise today. He said that Obama's speech tonight must not gloss over the reality that America is facing an economic disaster that hasn't been seen since the Depression.

While the media's campaign coverage continues to focus on the horse race (e.g., What Obama needs to do to carry Pennsylvania) and such ephemera as the multimillion-dollar convention set created by Britney Spears' designer, we have:

• An economy based on our consuming ever more
  
• China and others poised to bury us. Russia seems to be hankering for another cold war.
  
• Insecure borders, with immigration uncontrolled
  
• Terrorists who want to use nuclear and radiologic devices to destroy us and our allies
• Ever more Americans worried if they'll have as good a job next year or any job, for that matter
• Millions of Americans without health insurance and who couldn't afford fee-for-service, and we really don't have a way to provide it without hurting the quality of health care for those who currently are insured.
• An education system that for decades has been long on promises, and despite massive spending increases, short on delivery.
  

Too, we face enormous environmental dilemmas:

• Do we spend many billions of ever harder-to-find dollars to attempt to cool the earth when the science behind the global warming predictions is growing ever shakier?
  
• Do we invest more billions of dollars in taxpayer money to accelerate the development of alternative fuels so we can more quickly become energy independent, or would it be prudent to not tax the public on schemes that the private sector deems not worth the investment?
  

I wish, vainly, that Obama's speech tonight would address these issues instead of focus-group-dial-tested, meaningless propaganda phrases like "Change we can believe in, "Keep America's promise alive." We need new directions, not the tired old policies of the failed Bush-McCain administration."

If Obama addressed the aforementioned core issues in a circumspect and forthright way, despite my Libertarian leanings, I'd seriously consider voting for him.