For most of 2007 and 2008, Barack Obama has been the Change candidate using his mantra of "change you can believe in" to woo voters unhappy with the way things have been going in the country. But what has his change message been? Basically, an Obama directed change breaks down this way: first, we will have a new president with a very different background and outlook from President Bush. After all, Obama does not look like those other presidents on the dollar bills (no I am not trying to scare you). Second, Obama will call on Americans to make sacrifices -- it will not be easy! Third, Obama will inject government into many more areas of American society and will move towards redistribution of wealth by raising taxes on those who can afford it and giving more to those in need (or at least that is the claim). Fourth, Obama will move the country beyond race and beyond partisan rancor. He will work in a bipartisan fashion to get the whole country working as one.
Now that the party conventions have concluded, it is worth revisiting the subject of change to see how it stacks up currently. In short, much of Obama's change message has now been lost or coopted by the Republicans. First, while McCain looks more like those guys on the currency, he clearly is not planning to govern much like George Bush. In my view, this is the necessary outcome of the RNC; the Palin selection alone makes this clear. In fact, for those who were voting for Obama to be part of an historic change, they can now do so by voting for McCain and Palin. It may seem mindless to vote for a candidate just to make history, but there are some who feel as if it will make their vote more meaningful if they elect the first black or woman. Palin is unlikely to win over many in the black community on this basis, but there should be many others who will opt for McCain now that this element of the selection has been neutralized.
Second, McCain also is now calling for sacrifices by Americans, but his argument is a more individually uplifting one. The mantra of working for something larger than oneself calls for direct participation by the people rather than by the government. It is a basic and time honored philosophical difference between the Dems and the GOP.
Third, McCain has made clear that Obama's push towards more government involvement is anathema to him and the GOP. However, this again is the time honored dispute between the parties.
Fourth, Obama has lost the post partisan claim for the foreseeable future, and he will probably not be able to reclaim it before the election. Obama's selection of a tired, old Washington insider to be vice president (one who has spent his life as an unyielding partisan) did extreme damage to the Obama claim to be post partisan. The RNC also had some success in portraying Obama as anything but post partisan. On the other hand, McCain and his "scars" have been presented as being above the partisan wars of Washington. Unlike Obama's, his claim has actual facts to back him up. As this plays out, the difference here could prove crucial to the outcome of the election.
Right now, McCain has established a significant claim to being the change candidate. The extraordinary prospect of the incumbent party winning the argument as to who is the party of change, gives McCain the possibility of sweeping the election. Still, even a relatively narrow loss by the Republicans on the change issue would be enough for McCain to win based upon his enormous lead in the character and experience questions.
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