Things A Smart Republican Would Do Now

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Voyager

I read you as saying that the Republican primary this year was just like the Democratic primary of 2008. It wasn’t.

Of course not. Which is why I didn’t say that.

Slight zigs and zags, yes. Major ones, no. Please give an example of Obama doing major changes between his primary and the first election. And for the most part when they move to the center they can because their base would excuse minor movement. Clearly Romney thought the far right would not support a major move to the center - and he is plenty smart to know one was necessary. Thus his confused set of positions.

What’s “slight” and what’s “major” is too much a matter of perspective to argue about.

Romney got hit on this charge because 1) he had to run in primaries and Obama did not. (A similar dynamic prevailed in 2004, and Kerry was dinged with the same issue.), and 2) because having been governor of MA he was one pivot ahead of the average.

[Although I should note that most candidates more right/left in preparation for their run. Which is why you had these rankings showing Obama being the most liberal senator or close to it - in preparation for a prtimary run, a senator adjusts his votes in the year(s) leading up to it.]

While no one expected a 300 page plan, mentioning a few loopholes would have been nice, rather than just offering the ones he wouldn’t touch.

Wouldn’t have helped him to have just offered up a few. He would have faced the exact same criticism, which was based on skepticism over whether it would have been enough.

Depends on whether there was real dirt there or not - and your example is not real dirt, It would have about as much traction as the 20 year old redistribution tape of Obama.

In the heat of a campaign, anything is enough. College pranks, leaving dogs on top of cars, anything.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

Romney got hit on this charge because 1) he had to run in primaries and Obama did not.

But he did run in primaries in 2008 which is what **Voyager **was referring to, I believe.

(Although I should note that most candidates more right/left in preparation for their run. Which is why you had these rankings showing Obama being the most liberal senator or close to it - in preparation for a primary run, a senator adjusts his votes in the year(s) leading up to it.

This is incorrect, but don’t feel so badly. John McCain made the same mistake.

“Senator Obama has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate,” McCain said. “It’s hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left.”

On Jan. 31, 2008, five days before the Super Tuesday primaries, National Journal published an article headlined “Obama: Most Liberal Senator in 2007.”

Yet other ratings don’t show Obama as the Senate’s top lefty.

He wasn’t the top liberal in his two other years in the U.S. Senate according to *National Journal *. He was 10th-most liberal in 2006 and 16th in 2005.

If McCain had made a more general statement about Obama’s ideology, he could have been more accurate. But McCain’s statement that Obama “has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate,” suggests it is a cumulative rating for all of Obama’s time in the Senate. But in fact, it is true for only *one *rating for *one *year. Measurements for other years and by other groups show Obama is not the No. 1 liberal — in some cases, far from No. 1. So we find McCain’s statement to be Mostly False.

PolitiFact

So he was neither the most Liberal Senator, nor did his voting record go in the direction that you seem to think throughout his tenure.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@John_Stamos_Left_Ear

But he did run in primaries in 2008 which is what **Voyager **was referring to, I believe.

I don’t know what Voyager meant and his comments seemed to be about the relative weakness of the 2012 Republican field compared to the 2008 Democratic one, which is completely unrelated to what we’re discussing.

Obama in 2008 would have been impacted by the same pressure to zig and zag as any candidate in a primary and general election.

So he was neither the most Liberal Senator, nor did his voting record go in the direction that you seem to think throughout his tenure.

You have it backwards.

The numbers that you’ve provided show that as Obama got closer to the 2008 primaries his votes became steadily more liberal. Which is consistent with what I wrote and consistent with the general dynamic of these races that I’ve described.