All About Obama

"The core message of the Obama/DNC campaign is that McCain has flip-flopped on all his old maverick image. The key message of the McCain/RNC campaign is that Obama is an opportunist who will flip-flop when it helps him politically. And so it goes. Every day, flip-flop charges bang up against the political press like moths on a screen door. And we let some of them in, sometimes with the unexamined conceit that any shift in position is a window into the candidate's lack of character, toughness or principle.

"So how do we cull the moths to separate bogus flip-flop charge from valuable one? Does it matter that in Obama's new ad he is boasting of promoting welfare reform that he originally opposed? Should it matter that McCain's call for offshore oil drilling contradicts his past positions? What about Obama's shifts on public financing or the DC gun ban? Or McCain's reversal on the 2001 Bush tax cuts? Or Obama's shift on the FISA bill? Or the unending emails I get about specific votes that prove Senator X or Senator Y has been on two sides of every issue, even though every Senate bills often bundle together a dozen issues forcing senators to vote yes for things they don't like and no for things they like?"

Does the yardstick make sense? Andrew Sullivan doesn't think so:

"It's often a completely idiotic way to analyze a candidate. Sometimes a flip-flop is a sign of real maturity in a politician responding to new events or facts. And sometimes, rigid consistency is disastrous. If Bush had flip-flopped on the Iraq occupation two years earlier, the world would be a much better place. And if he'd flip-flopped on torture and detention after the initial panicked over-reach, he would have been spared an awful and self-defeating ordeal."

Sure, but as I've said, candidates who don't own up to changing their views have to twist themselves into rhetorical pretzels.

But my suggestion would run afoul of the unwritten rules, at least according to Roger Simon:

"The press can be unforgiving about any changes in position, large or small, real or imagined, that a candidate makes. The late George Carlin became famous for his comedy routine on the 'seven words you can never say on TV.' But presidential candidates have four words they can never say on TV or anywhere else: 'I changed my mind.'

"Other words they cannot utter include: 'As circumstances have changed, so have my positions' and 'I have learned a thing or two.' This is not allowed, because it is proof of flip-flopping, pandering, moving to the (gasp) center and, worst of all, trying to get elected."

The Obama evolution looks very different to the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal:

"Most presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn't merely "running to the center." He's fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he's embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush's policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?"

Now to the Latest McCain Shake-up, which his staff insists is not a shake-up (in case you haven't noticed, journalists love shake-ups, more so than talking about free trade in Colombia):

"Senator John McCain's presidential campaign has gone through its second shake-up in a year," says the New York Times. "Responding to Republican concerns that his candidacy was faltering, Mr. McCain put a veteran of President Bush's 2004 campaign in charge of day-to-day operations and stepped away from a plan to have the campaign run by 11 regional managers, Mr. McCain's aides said Wednesday.