With the economy the king pin of the issues in this election, the NYT Sunday magazine had a thorough piece on what Obama is thinking and what he will likely do. The challenge is to reconcile the differences between the two economic Bobs of the Democratic Party: Bob Rubin, the architect of Bill Clinton’s successful economic policies and former Secretary of the Treasury, and Bob Reich, the philosophical alternativist and former Secretary of Labor. To make it overly simple, Rubin won the debate by urging deficit reduction; Reich lost urging investement in infrastructure and job training.

As it is now appearing in many policy areas, Obama is somewhere in the middle. David Leonhardt, the author of the piece, says, and rightly so, that the economy has changed signficantly since 1993, and it is no longer a case of either/or, but both/and. Obama needs to celebrate and contrast the Bill Clinton strategies with Bush, but then he needs to go further. This article shows how.

Economics is hard to talk about in plain terms. It doesn’t fit on a bumber sticker. But there is one fact that Obama and the Dems should hammer relentlessly: 60 percent of the American workers have NOT see an increase in their salaries since 2000, adjusted for inflation. To make ends meet, they borrow money, only making matters worse. The second point that should be hammered in a strong TV ads is McCain saying I don’t know anything about the economy. And the third point is that McCain’s economic advisors say it is a “mental recession“–all in our heads, not in our wallets.

Obama needs to be clear about economic issues and steal the thunder from the Johnny boys who will trot out the old refrain next week: Obama is a tax and spend liberal. The ground work needs to be done this week, but the spades need to come out next week. It’s still the economy, stupid.