JUST THINKIN'

Bob Herbert, for these past 18 years a New York Times columnist, has just retired to write a book and put across his thinking in more depth. He has been an outspoken yet thoughtful advocate for economic justice, who writes clearly and can present an idea in different ways over time so as to underscore it without making readers restless.

His background is as a reporter and journalist. He is TV-savvy but not slick; you can watch him speak on YouTube. At 66, he is a trim, fit-looking man with a weathered, intelligent, interesting face and an unaccented voice. An interviewer describes his persona as easygoing and decent.

I am sure there are restless, well-connected people who would like to see President Obama's renomination short-circuited. I wonder if the news that Herbert is free has piqued curiosity about running him? I have zero reason to think he would do it, and there could be a dozen reasons why he shouldn't. But he knows how to deliver a message, and he has the right one. In an America where the few at the top of the economic pyramid own 40 trillion dollars while the middle class is vanishing and the poor have to choose between food and heat, a popular rebellion can and should be incited.

Oh, and did I mention that Herbert is black? This could alter the dynamic of the challenge, as it has been assumed (I think not altogether rightly) that Mr. Obama "owns" the black vote. The open question is whether African-Americans will feel they must preserve the gain they made with his election by voting for him again, or whether they think their equal place at the starting line is now established so that they can vote their interests rather than their identity. If the alternative is also black, that could move the needle a long way toward the latter possibility.

And while I don't know who Herbert's middle class Northeastern parents were, it is likely that they were both African-American; that plus his more liberal views could make him seem "more black" than Mr. Obama to black voters while making no difference to white voters since both are highly intelligent and wholly comfortable in multiracial contexts.

By boldly standing for something concrete -- not for "change" and "hope"- - Herbert might be in a position to generate the mandate that a president will have to have if he is to tackle the real and urgent issues ahead of us. It is dead certain that Mr. Obama can't do that. Both his re-election strategy and his persona compel him to hug the center-line. He has assumed that the left wing of the party, which is his base, has nowhere else to go.

Increasingly Mr. Obama has appeared wishywashy, pro-Wall Street, and too eager to get along with the Republicans. On top of that, he has damaged himself with an inexplicable failure to communicate. He should have been holding fireside chats right along, explaining why what he wants to do has to be done. His sheer elusiveness has provided a blank slate that partisans and cranks have written hateful lies on with impunity. And his apparent incapacity for righteous anger has weakened his credibility and lessened confidence in his character in a time when anger is, as a matter of visible fact, the chief mode in which conviction and courage are registered.

And Bob Herbert? Who knows! That he will run is a very long shot. But it is worth contemplating because of what it raises to view.

Mr. Obama has been studying Ronald Reagan but has not learned what he should have from him. Herbert would not have to learn it. The Barack Obama-Dwight Eisenhower-Gerald Ford way of winning the voters in the middle is to straddle. Reagan stayed hard-right but got out in front and led; because people liked him and felt that his self-assurance and determination were assets for the country, they let him do what he wanted to do with their blessing although poll after poll showed that they did not agree with it.

Herbert: "The public will follow strong leadership in almost any direction."

If there is to be a Reagan of the left in the near future, it will be not Mr. Obama but someone like Bob Herbert.