The Obamacans and McCainocrats And The Pitch To Centrists

What do Democratic Senator Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain have in common? Both presumptive Presidential nominees are trying to appeal to the center while they try to consolidate support from their parties’ bases.

John Avlon, a top centrist who worked for both former President Bill Clinton and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, takes a look at this race to scoop up centrist voters in a MUST READ piece on The Politico. Some key excerpts:

In the past, we have seen Eisenhower Democrats and Reagan Democrats, even Republicans for Bill Clinton in 1992. This year, two new terms are entering the political lexicon: Obamacans and McCainocrats. They testify to the way old labels are giving way to new evolutions as the political map edges toward realignment.

A new Gallup poll shows that nearly one-in-four U.S. voters is now a “swing voter” — a higher percentage than at any time in the polarizing 2004 election. Barack Obama and John McCain are each appealing to around 10 percent of the other party’s voters, according to a June Fox/Opinion Dynamics poll.

Even so, there are partisans in both parties who are pooh-poohing the idea that swing voters matter and even have name for them: “the mushy middle.”

But both Obama and McCain share one other thing in common: they do not want to lose and know that they cannot win if they ignore swing voters.

Avlon also notes something I’ve written about here.

There are Big Broom voters who want to sweep away parts of the old political establishment order — and they represent potentially potent constituencies for McCain and Obama:

There are two main strains to the Obamacan phenomenon: people who are inspired by Obama’s post-partisanship, and those who want a complete blood transfusion for the GOP brand after the days of President Bush, Karl Rove and Tom DeLay.

And he notes that some key Republicans have already defected from the GOP fold:

This is not a fringe festival — Republicans who now support Obama count among their ranks Ike’s granddaughter Susan Eisenhower; Milton Friedman’s son, David; former Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.); conservative legal scholar Douglas Kmeic; and Reagan’s assistant secretary of defense, Lawrence J. Korb.

Despite all the defections, McCain is the strongest candidate Republicans could hope for this year. The man is a walking profile in courage, the antidote to everything Tom DeLay stood for.

Avlon is correct – -and it is heresy to write that in some quarters. But McCain is not Tom Delay or the present George Bush. That message, though, is now being blurred with some of McCain’s stances as he moves to the right to keep his base — and with recent news that Karl Rove’s proteges have high posts in his campaign while Rove himself is an “informal” campaign adviser.

Avlon thinks national security could be McCain’s trump card and notes websites of Democrats supporting McCain, then adds:”But to a troubling extent, the grass-roots McCain Democrat websites are more anti-Obama than pro-McCain.”

Even so, Avlon’s argument is that if you cut away all the political screaming and posturing this year IS different with two candidates who ARE different who DO offer a chance to shift America from the mega-polarization political wars:

These flashes of anger distracts from the larger fact that both Obama and McCain defined their candidacies early around ending hyper-partisanship in Washington. That’s at the heart of their ability to appeal across the aisle. This election offers a healthy competition for votes in the center of the political spectrum, a rare opportunity for Americans to choose the candidate they like best, not the candidate they dislike least. The winner will give crossover voters something to vote for — rather than just someone to vote against.

Read it in its entirety.