Who Truly Represents Change? Obama or McCain? or Perhaps Both?

Who is the “change” candidate for 2008? Is it Barack Obama, as expected, or John McCain, whose only evidence that he is a “change candidate” thus far is something that he said in the last few weeks after being conservative for more than 3 decades and by picking Sarah Palin, a lady even less experienced than Obama, for a running mate? Let’s take a look at the evidence and what experts are saying.

While both Obama and McCain seemed to be zeroing in on economic issues, specifically the federal takeover of mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it was clear that both men and their running mates are still intent on squabbling about “change”.

Specifically, during a “Road to Victory” rally in Missouri, Palin got onto the “change” bandwagon by saying that “in politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers and then there are those like John McCain who use their careers to promote change”. Wait a minute. If McCain has spent his career promoting change, that means the he isn’t a conservative because by definition, conservatives resist change!

The Obama campaign quickly responded with Obama telling a crowd in Flint, Michigan that “John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, asserted at the (Republican National) Convention that they were the agents of change. You can’t just recreate yourself. When she was mayor, she hired a Washington lobbyist to get earmarks – pork barrel spending. All the things that John McCain says is bad, she lobbied to get. And got a lot of it. When it came to “The Bridge to Nowhere”, she was for it until everybody started making a fuss about it and she started running for governor and then suddenly, she was against it. “For it before you were against it”? I mean you just can’t make stuff up”. So, here, we have the same message that has been reiterated over and over again. The Republicans are Washington insiders who are supported by rich lobbyists. The Republicans flipflop. The Republicans’ objectives are politically motivated.

Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, continued the assault on Palin in Green Bay, Wisconsin: “Her views from global warming to other things are pretty far out there”, presenting Palin as out-of-touch.

So, how are voters reacting to all this verbal jousting? According to a recent poll jointly conducted by ABC and the Washington Post, it’s basically a dead heat with McCain surprisingly leading Obama 49-47 among likely voters (assuming that everything, including the selection of McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin) has been considered, while Obama still leads among registered voters 47-46. It is surprising, however, that Obama’s lead among registered voters (1 percentage point) is smaller than McCain’s lead among likely voters (2 points).