Bloomberg’s Juliana Goldman takes note of the Obama campaign’s clumsy attempts to tack rightwards:
The “Danzig” that the story mentions is also an adviser to the Obama campaign and one of those suddenly desirable veterans. He was Secretary of the Navy under Bill Clinton. What makes this story interesting isn’t the craven cynicism. Well, maybe that’s kinda interesting. By suddenly wrapping himself in Old Glory after initially refusing to even put a miniaturized version of her on his lapel, Obama has shown himself capable of Clintonian levels of cynicism. I can only imagine the disillusionment of Obama followers who actually thought he would practice a new type of politics. I trust the intern in charge of such things at The Atlantic has removed all sharp objects from Andrew Sullivan’s office. But what’s really interesting is what the timing of this switcheroo says about the modern Democratic party. Even with the party’s drift to the left in recent times, I wouldn’t have thought that “flags and other patriotic props” would have potentially alienated Democratic voters. Perhaps the Obama campaign figured differently. Still more noteworthy is the sudden elevation of military veterans to prominence and the new emphasis on Obama’s grandfather’s World War II service. Surely such things would have appealed to Democratic primary voters and not just general election voters. Right? Given how passionately the left supports the troops, I’m rather stunned that Obama didn’t leverage his advantage among veterans earlier in such a heated nomination fight. HT: Allah
