2008=2000: No, You're the Best...No, You Are!

Unfortunately for the ardent right and left-wingers in this vast country of ours, this election is not offering that much entertainment.  The old battle lines are being redrawn...nay, they are being shuffled away.  A liberal and a conservative, in the terms we are used to now, are not in play in this election.  Instead, a Nixonian Republican and a Wilsonian Democrat are duking it out.  But something tells me this may slightly resemble Bush v. Gore of 2000, also.

For a few reasons I believe this election may turn muddy.  Not in the mud-slinging, negative campaigning kind of way (that is almost a certainty and already a reality), but in the sense that the difference between each candidate will be muddied in the center.  Not as much as Bush and Gore in 2000, where, at the time, the only difference between both candidates lied in characteristics (a poor vocabulary versus a stilted one) rather than policies.  Little did we know back then, eh?  

Take, for example, the recent news about offshore oil drilling.  McCain has wavered on the issue, while Obama held ground with his fellow Democrats and opposed the drilling.  As the New York Times reports, this has changed:

A day after Senator Barack Obama said he would consider supporting broad energy legislation that would permit some of the offshore oil drilling he had previously opposed, an aide to Senator John McCain said Sunday that he too might support such a compromise package.  

Both McCain and Obama have gravitated toward the compromising center.  A firm Yes or No is nowhere to be found.  Instead, the "It depends" that makes the center its home is the word of the day.  

It doesn't stop with the drilling.  Both candidates have made shifts in their positions on Iraq, and the environmental issue as a whole so far.  The possibility that more inward moves is likelier by the second, but I doubt this will be 2000 Redux for a few reasons.

• Obama needs to keep the "Medicine" image:  If he becomes too much like McCain, or lets him do the same, he will lose his uniqueness, which includes his "Change" candidate mantra.
• McCain cannot afford to lose the little gains he has made with the conservative base.  Unlike Obama who can go out and slap an undocumented immigrant in the face and still keep the left side of his support, McCain is still trying to woo the right-wingers.  Bob Barr, the independent who could potentially derail McCain's shot at the presidency, is a conservative darling.  Many are still wondering if he should be given their full support and make him a true contender, thereby splitting up the conservative vote and making Obama president by default.
• There is too much passion in this election.  Unlike 2000 where our biggest fear was when the free shipping at Amazon.com would cease to be offered, our list of issues is huge and draws unbelievable passion from all sides.  If the candidates decide to become two heads of the same creature, a missed opportunity at political momentum will be had.

If Obama and McCain become pure pragmatists on all the issues, then they need to articulate that move very well to all of America.  If they fail to do that, then whoever wins, by no matter what margin, will inherit an America with a creeping malaise and lose of hope in their leaders.

lhp