McCain Obama Campaigns: The Same Old Same Old?

MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro, writing in First Read note that the bloom is falling off the John McCain “Straight Talk Express” and Barack Obama “Change You Can Believe In” campaigns:

A different kind of campaign? Hardly: There’s a common theme running in Dan Balz’s column (which notes that the McCain-Obama contest isn’t any different from past campaigns) and James Rainey’s piece (asking why the candidates aren’t getting tough questions on Iraq). The campaigns simply aren’t being challenged — by the press or the public. And they are acting, well, just like any other modern presidential campaign. Where’s the new and different type of campaign so many folks expected?

Perhaps the answer lies in that it has seemingly-evaporated under the strong rays of political self-interest, vital coalition building, and the political realities about the way in which our political culture is now set up in the United States. With so many careers, money, and paths on issues in play, it’s hard for a candidate to literally risk all by running a REAL maverick or change campaign.

The politically late Ralph Nader — you, know, that guy who recently said Obama wasn’t talking black enough on the campaign trail – was wrong in 2000 (as liberals and conservatives know full well) when he said it didn’t matter who was elected since the parties weren’t really different.

What is a constant, however, is what candidates must do and not do in order to be elected. And that can be changed by incremental steps.