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While The New York Times Magazine's piece on Senator Obama's economic policies quelled my remaining doubts with regard to his positions on economic issues, I feel like the Senator has lost steam in the last two or three weeks. His campaign has gone from one that enraptured voters and appealed to voters with a sense of vision, to something much more insipid.

Just today, the campaign released two new television commercials to counteract the Sarah Palin effect on the media's coverage of the campaign. Neither one caught my attention. The first, "Real Change," features the Junior Senator from Illinois explaining his views on a variety of issues. It's not awful, but it's not inspiring, interesting or particularly captivating.

The second, "Still," lambasts Senator McCain for his lack of technological literacy and facile understanding of economic issues. Unlike "Real Change," the second advertisement looks unfinished and unpolished. A 16-year-old with a MacBook and a copy of Final Cut Pro could have made a more polished looking advertisement. And, while it cannot quite match the latest McCain ad in terms of negativity and ad hominem attacks, "Still," doesn't strike me as particularly positive or forward looking. (Incidentally, I feel compelled to point out that YouTube's search suggestions put John Mayer before John McCain.)

Senator Obama needs to shake up the race. He needs to take our attention away from Governor Palin and Senator McCain. A new pair of iffy campaign commercials will not cut it. We need the Barack Obama who inspires, not the Barack Obama trying to beguile Middle America with specific policy prescriptions. As much as those voters claim they want to hear specifics, hear more than inspiring rhetoric, it is not the dull, Barack Obama — who, it seems, spends hours repeating the mundane details of his healthcare proposal or tax plan — that drove droves to the polls in the Democratic primary to make him the Democrat's nominee.

Like many of my peers, I felt drawn to the Senator by his inspiring rhetoric and his perhaps chimerical vision of an America once again at its acme. He represented someone who, even if I disagreed with some of his policies, seemed to posses the willpower to unstick the gears of government and remove whatever negative connotation we have come to associate with the word bureaucrat. In this case, change is not the solution, but rather the problem.