From a reader:
Subject: Corner versus Corner
Jonah,
I just have to email you. Please, please stop.
You are making the case that with Obama, you are assured someone who will not violate your party’s principals, but that with McCain, you can’t be sure what you’re getting (sometimes he works in your party’s interest and sometimes he works against the Republican party.)
This is a great sales pitch for Obama and paints McCain is someone Republicans can’t trust.
Me: I don’t get this. Arguing that Obama can be counted on to be a reliably partisan, left-leaning president will turn off Republicans because it somehow insinuates that McCain won’t be as reliably partisan for Republicans? I certainly agree that McCain would not be as doctrinaire a conservative as Obama would be a liberal. But what Republican (as opposed to some overly strategic anti-McCain conservatives) would prefer to lose and get 100% pure liberalism over, say, 65% pure conservatism? Obama-as-rubber-stamp for Pelosi is not an argument for Obama, save for people who are already fully committed to voting Democrat. For swing voters and Republicans it’s a pretty good argument for McCain — and for good reason.