2008 Presidential Politics re: 1972

In an Op-Ed piece today in the New York Times, David Brooks makes the argument that the way to win the presidential election this year is to be the weirder candidate - the one that surprises voters the most. He talks about how Obama, throughout the primary season, was the weird candidate - he ran an essentially unconventional campaign using the internet in ways not seen before (and in ways that the Dean campaign of '04 attempted, but fell short on). He was running a campaign of change. Now, however, it seems that his platform of outright "change in Washingtonian politics" has regressed into "change from a Republican president to a Democrat." The rub is, that's simply not change. At least, it's not change in the fundamental sense that Obama stressed so much during the primaries.

Unfortunately, someone has latched onto this idea of fundamental change in the way things are done in Washington - and it's coming from the presidential candidate of the same party as the current president. McCain is, quite suddenly, the Change Man. It seems to be working, as some polls show him gaining an edge on Obama.

Mr. Brooks gets all of this, and points it out in his column. He does leave out something, though: this has happened before. In the 1972 presidential campaign, George McGovern ran a wildly successful primary season that saw him transform from the fringe candidate who happened to be popular with the youth vote into the darling of Democrats in America. He beat out a more widely known candidate (Hubert Humphrey) on a platform of - you guessed it - change. Fundamental change in the way business is done in Washington. After securing the Democratic nomination for president, however, he subsequently attempted to unite the party by playing nice with other Democrats who, not long before, had been derisive of his entire campaign. He also chose an entirely mainstream senator as a vice president - a moderate - alienating much of the more liberal new voters who got him the nomination in the first place. By reneging on his promises of real and fundamental change he allowed Nixon, the Republican incumbent, to make a few smart moves and take the election in a landslide.

Obama, with his choice of Senator Biden as vice president, has made the exact same mistake. The election season has sounded and felt familiar, but previous to reading the Brooks column this afternoon I hadn't realized why. Anyone can promise change when it is safe to do so. Few can deliver on it when doing so means taking a political risk - even when not doing so constitutes a bigger (albeit seldom recognized) risk.

-The Ambassador