Summer Flip Flops

I seem to recall an old saying that went something like “You leave the dance with the one that brung ya.”

This came to my mind after listening to the recent reports about how McCain and Obama are flip flopping on a variety of critical issues. Both candidates now seem to be moving towards the center in their need to acquire the largest voting base possible. But as so often happens, this is angering the far right and left supporters who elected these candidates in the first place. And any movement to the center can only hurt Obama more than it hurts McCain.

The far right has always been wary of McCain’s more centric outlook, as well they should be. He paid lip service to the basic tenants of the Christian right during the primary but now that he is the candidate he is moving back to the center again. No one is really surprised at this change, including the far right candidates. There is discussion of making this an issue during the convention but it is doubtful if much will happen. As long as McCain promises to stay the course in Iraq, continue to support the Second Amendment and be pro-life then most Republicans will continue to support him.

On the other hand, Obama cannot afford to anger the far left that elected him over Hillary this spring. Yet he did just that when he tried to sneak in during the start of the long weekend an idea of taking more time on bringing the troops home. But it backfired on him and Obama now has to spend time trying to explain that he didn’t really mean that. It is on this promise, of bringing home the troops immediately, that most differentiated Barack from Hillary and his supporters will not give him any leeway on this issue.

Yet if Barack stays true to his far left supporters then he won’t be elected. It is as simple as that. We have seen this happen time after time in the Democratic Party. Candidates who promote far left issues find themselves out of sync with the rest of the nation. Bill Clinton, the only Democratic candidate in the past 25 years to be elected, ran on a centrist theme from the start and therefore was not tied to far left extremist ideas. All the other recent Democratic candidates relied on far left supporters to win the primary and found they had very little room to move towards the center. And so they lost.

Barack Obama’s first effort to move slightly towards the center, even during a four day weekend when no one is supposed to be paying any attention, did become an issue and was met with resistance from his supporters. It will be interesting to watch over the next four months if Obama can become more centrist in order to appeal to a bigger voter block. Or perhaps I should rephrase it to read; if Obama’s supporters will allow him to move to the right from their far left stance.

Can he appeal to more centrist voters or is he stuck with the far left ones that he brung to this dance?