Does he think we won’t notice?
That’s a good question, not only on this issue, but on a whole host of others where the Illinois senator appears to be tuning up for the fall campaign.
How much of this pandering to the hard ideological bases of their parties do Obama or McCain think that they need to do at this point?
Someone needs to take both of the presumptive nominees and point out that they each give cover to the other. In the end, 95% or more of the hard core base of their parties are sticking with them and will not defect.
Now is a great time for both candidates to build on their maverick appeal and do something only a few presidents in the past century–Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon in 1972, and Ronald Reagan in 1980–have done: expand the base of their parties. The candidate who breaks away from the minimalist, bring-out-the-base strategies favored by Paul Begala and James Carville in the Democratic Party and Lee Atwater and Karl Rove in the Republican Party, will have an opportunity to forge an era-dominating political coalition. Both the war and the economy, which foster the desire for change, create that opportunity for them.
In the past, both have demonstrated an ability to appeal beyond their own parties. Now, it’s gut check time. They need to ask themselves if they’re willing to bet everything on cracking the power of partisan gridlock and moving beyond creaking incrementalism to bring a wholesale change in Washington atmospherics and coincidentally, to grasp the opportunity for true presidential greatness that comes to very few chief executives.
For McCain, the answer to that question should be easy. The political landscape is stacked against him this year. He should have the freedom of a condemned man, the freedom to be himself, the freedom to ignore conventional wisdom. The neocons in his party may sit on their hands this fall, but they won’t vote for Barack Obama.
Meanwhile, McCain, with his position on the war and economic issues, doesn’t threaten Obama’s chances of taking the votes of most Democrats.
But both Obama and McCain are signaling a retreat to bland caution or worse yet, to outright flip flopping.
This year, I think, the candidate seen to flip flop the least or, given that changing one’s mind can be a sign of strength of maturity, thought to flip flop for the best reason, will get the most credit with an electorate ready for change and an end to the meaningless partisan kabuki dance.
Both McCain and Obama would do well to heed the lesson of Mitt Romney from earlier this year: Your changing positions to be more palatable will, in the end, make you less palatable.
[Mark Daniels’ personal blog is here.]