McCain is not some one I'd expect to govern with the in-your-face-divisiveness of George W Bush. But I see him out there pandering to the very people who have loudly denounced him as–I have to laugh–a member of the Gang of 14, someone who reached across the aisle to Kennedy and Feingold.

It makes me very uncomfortable.

Wouldn't he take action to fulfill his promises to them?

I also disagree with your definition of a centrist. A centrist, in the ideal sense of the world, woudl be someone whose politics reflected the center of the political movements of America, the median political reality, or someone who voted nearly half and half. McCain and Leiberman, in the ideal sense, aren't political centrists. Neither is Barack Obama. Neither are people who self-identify as centrist.

Independent would be a better word than centrist, because independents are people who make decisions solely out of their own value system as opposed to loyalty to the party or fear of political reprecussion.

But even, this, I would argue, isn't always a positive, because then Strom Thurmond would be one of the greatest politicians alive for having his independently founded and upheld racist views.

What is neccessary in order to retain a level of appeal in American politics is the ability to communicate ideas on someone else's level, in someone else's comfort zone, in a way that will resonate to the widest possible net of citizens. It is the ability to make someone support or respect a policy proposal that they might otherwise oppose, or simply not support. It is also the ability to tie citizens in a common pursuit, such that the majority has a fluidity of allegiance to policy but a solidity of allegiance to the nation, and to each other. That is to say, the ideal leader can get people to support liberal or conservative policies by communicating those policies to them.

Barack Obama is capable of it. John McCain is capable of it. But what I've seen from John McCain that I haven't yet seen from Obama, is McCain's willingness to attack his opponents. When people say he hasn't called people a traitor, he has certainly implied as much about the opposition to the Iraq war in 2004 and 2005. He's shouted obsenities at politicians, proclaimed his knowledge, and developed a vindictive relationship with vindictive people in terms of his issue with the religious right. Though some anger, some resent, may be justified, it takes a bit of wind out of the sails when you realize that while McCain himself may be willing to support policies that aren't strictly conservative, that his way of communicating towards any of the policies his support, of communicating them to opponents of that policy, is lacking., because he's still prone to derision and ridicule. Hillary Clinton, however, would knock them both out of the park, because she intends, quite frankly, to have a political war with Republicans.

John McCain, when he does go over that line, doesn't do it because he's a cynical political player, he does it out of instinct and genuine frustration, but the fact that he still does it demonstrates flaws in his ability to communicate with opponents.

I only tell this story to be an example of an Obama supporter who's not sitting around swooning at beautiful speeches.

It is this aspect of the otherwise without a doubt liberal Obama that appeals to centrists.

Some of this was discussed in a post a few items down that also referenced the Brooks article. The most informative comment, I thought, was from mikkel, so you may wish to check it out. I will link the post, I hope.

I don't think Obama is a McCain or Lieberman type of centrist in which he votes sometimes with one group when he agrees with them and sometimes with another group. If that is what many Republicans or Brooks hope for from Obama, I agree they will be disappointed. I think he's selling something different (and this echoes Mikkel's comment).

Instead of sometimes voting Republican and usually voting Democratic, he will bring people from opposing viewpoints to the table more often. A republican will be able to criticize a proposal, probably in closed doors in a spirit of working together as opposed to scoring political points, and possibly the proposal will be changed/tweaked to account for this criticism more. That's the sort of centrism being promised.

Currently, both Democrats and Republicans develop some policy and then try to ram it down the throats of the minority party. Obama promises people with opposing viewpoints working together more often to find a solution they can handle. Of course, it won't be 50/50. If you look at his record and find evidence that this claim of centrism is false, then I think that is a reason to not trust Obama as a centrist. I think there is some evidence in his years as a legislator that it is a legitimate claim on his part.