In recent weeks McCain has attempted to jump on the change bandwagon and I want to add my voice to those observing that this is preposterous.
McCain had a genuine claim towards independence for a while, but he, like Romney, has completely caved to a party platform. The man who said "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief," now thinks said tax cuts -- and extending them -- are dandy. Torture was unacceptable in this country until Bush needed McCain's support in 2007. Then he backed off his earlier rhetoric. He has come out against the immigration bill that he wrote.
Policy wise, all of those things are disastrous, but politically they indicate a dangerous trend even if you agree with his new positions.
Shifting your position, or at least how you articulate that position, is part of politics. Potential nominees have to sound different from actual nominees. That's the nature of the modern election. But there is a difference in the way you shift your words. 2004 brought us a political first. For the first time in a modern election (maybe the first time in US history), a candidate made an election more focused on turnout than persuasion. Bush's strategists realized that - in no small part due to his presidency -- the electorate was ludicrously polarized. So they ran a campaign more concerned with registering and pulling out conservative voters than with persuading more middle-of-the-road types. At 4:00 on November 2, 2004, Kerry's strategists thought they had won Ohio. They reached their vote goals in every precinct. They lost because of hundreds of thousands of newly registered religious and socially conservative voters.
The flaw with that kind of campaign is it encourages governance by political force rather than compromise. Bush owed his election to very enthusiastic, very right wing voters. There were a few main groups of these: a large bulk were anti-abortion, anti-gay-marriage, pro-religion social conservatives; another large block were national security folks who felt that Iraq was tied, however loosely, to September 11th, others were anti-tax libertarian types. On every issue important to these groups, Bush stood impossibly firm.
It's no coincidence that winning the election that way encouraged intractability. When you only have to worry about the people who agree with you, why compromise? Think of the first Daley administration in Chicago which didn't bother to maintain the streets or electrical services in parts of the south side because they didn't need the black votes. Or think of the past four years of Bush. Or just think of a six-year-old taking M&M's from his kid sister because he can.
Now, for the first time in recent history, a candidate is actually becoming less centrist after winning the nomination. Every positional and rhetorical change that McCain has made moves him politically right. He is now very pro-life, anti-immigration, pro-gun, and anti-tax. His is not a maverick campaign or even a different campaign. To borrow from Joe Biden's somewhat lame call and response, 'that's more of the same.'
While I can't know the individual minds of everyone who disapproves of Bush (there are so many reasons), my hunch is that the bulk of Republicans and independents who are tired of him are tired because the government is utterly dysfunctional and the reason its utterly dysfunctional is this attitude of appealing to the base. Because to appease the religious vote illegalizing abortion is more important than lowering the deficit. To make the Iraq folks happy, we must never give up on whatever nebulous goal we have. And for the anti-tax folks to be satisfied, schools, roads, and education must be sacrificed to somehow make our economy more friendly to business. Playing to your base means isolating those people who are not your base. And, unless you can completely dominate every branch of government, that tends to mean a legislative stalemate.
I am not saying that Obama isn't polarizing. He appeals to his base. But at least his politicking is directed towards convincing those who disagree with him rather than simply riling up his supporters.
But the nature of McCain's shifts in policy and rhetoric don't show a desire to change capitol hill, they just show a desire to win.
I thought many of Regan's policy positions were terrible, but, say what you will, he didn't change them just to get elected, and only changed them while governing when he needed to to move to the center to get things done. That's why the vast majority of the electorate views him as a successful president. Same thing with Bill Clinton (from the left). There are ideologues at either end of the political spectrum, but the vast majority of Amercians are in the middle or a couple of standard deviations out, and who get that ideological purity and $4 will get you a mocha latte at Starbucks.
"I am not saying that Obama isn't polarizing. He appeals to his base" Read The Audacity of Hope. He's pretty centrist and pragmatic (in the tradition of FDR, JFK and Bill Clinton). How the media portrays him is another matter . . .
the dems can win if they focus on her personality, her flip flops, transcanada and most of all -- abortion and sex ed. these topics become more difficult with "babygate" but don't mention the baby. have your point men mention it on serious shows.
some children are fortunate, what would a child do without a supportive family? shouldn't sex ed. be taught so support the family values with all the pressures our kids face? sometimes abstinence teaching is just not enough, and we have to be concerned with diseases? tough. wait a bit and then meniton it.