Ruth Marcus makes excuses. She sees no evidence of the promised "new politics" in Barack Obama's campaign, but this in-the-tank columnist has the unsurprising explanation.
Accepting his party's nomination in Denver, Obama decried the use of "stale tactics to scare voters." A few weeks later, he was airing ads warning that John McCain wanted to privatize Social Security and would slash seniors' benefits almost in half. You can't get much staler than that.
Certainly, John McCain did not shy away from the cheap shot or the divisive argument; the palling-around-with-terrorists, Obama-as-socialist themes were not the elevated campaign that he, too, pledged to run.
I don't blame Obama for responding in kind as much as I bristle at his simultaneous posture that he is above that sort of gutter politics.
Well of course it's John McCain's fault and Obama must respond in kind. But to her credit, Ms. Marcus is at least bright enough to figure out that Obama will govern as he campaigned -- in a rather standard Democratic fashion -- which means take no prisoners.
What evidence is there that a President Obama would govern differently than candidate Obama campaigned? Would a President Obama press policies -- on teacher accountability, on climate change, on trade -- that discomfit Democratic Party interest groups? Does he have the spine to stand up to the inevitably overreaching demands of congressional Democrats? Does he have some magical, Republican-whisperer ability to quell a political opposition that will be determined from Day One to frustrate his program and regain power?
Obama's closing argument offers reassuring words, undergirded by his evident instinct for consensus and pragmatism.
I know how he wants to govern. I'm not convinced he can pull it off.
Sorry Ruth. You only think you know how Obama wants to govern. What you know for a certainty is only how he says he wants to govern. He's said a lot of things. He could no more disown the Reverend Wright than he could his own grandmother -- then under the bus went the Reverend. He pledged to accept public financing for his campaign -- but then his fund raising broke all records and his campaign was inundated with cash. Sure, Ruth. You know how he wants to govern. Sure you do.
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