Rich touches on something in his column, Obama The Immoderate, that has been at the center of my own personal explanation of both Bush and Obama. Rich writes:

One of Pres. Barack Obama’s great political gifts is his moderate demeanor — cool, reasoned, self-contained. It masks the frank immoderation of everything about his final push on health-care reform.
His liberal admirers call him a centrist. He hasn’t tried to pass a single-payer system, has he? But Obama is in Washington, not Ottawa. Single-payer couldn’t possibly pass. Nor could the public option, which Obama supported until it reached its absolute expiration date. These aren’t principled acts of centrism; they are unexceptional adjustments to reality.

I think Rich is right on the substance. Obama is firmly on record believing that the best system would be single-payer. He just can’t get there in one leap.

But put the substance aside. During both the highs and lows of the Bush years there was a fairly constant conversation about how the secret to Bush’s initial success was that he was the sort of guy you might want to have a beer with. In the money primary and the real one, Bush managed to signal to the Christian right that he was “one of us” without turning off moderates. The Texas accent, the faith, the family, the body language: all of these things combined to form a potent political personality. Some people liked it, others hated it (remember all the whining about his Texas swagger?). I can’t tell you how many conservatives would send me furious email after I would criticize Bush along the lines of “you just don’t like real Americans!”

The same thing was true with Clinton. Some people just took an instant dislike to the guy. Others swooned. That’s how it often works in politics and life: personality matters. Many on the left couldn’t see Bush’s moderation because they couldn’t see past his personality, many on the right couldn’t see past Clinton’s centrism for the same reason. This, of course, is only a partial explanation, but pretty much every explanation is only partial.

What I find amusing is that a lot of people think this is a real phenomenon, but it only explains other peoples’ attraction to, or repulsion from, a candidate. I remember sitting with two very nice, older, liberal academics who took me out for a drink after a speech last year. They completely understood — and detested – the “have a beer with Bush” dynamic. But when I explained that I thought at least some of Obama’s support stemmed from a very similar “have a chablis with Obama” dynamic, they were aghast. No, no, no we like him because he’s so smart, he’s so pragmatic, his policies are empirical, his values humane. They were vaguely willing to concede that his race was a plus, but only by way of insisting that it was a minus for pretty much anyone who disliked Obama.

It’s always seemed obvious to me that a lot of Obama’s supporters, including many of the so-called “ObamaCons,” were simply charmed by the guy. Their pro-Obama arguments were often little more than rationalizations for personal feelings. Even now, it seems that a lot of the “Obama is a centrist” argument is based not on his actual policies or principles (or history) but simply on the fact that, gosh, he sounds so reasonable! (And certainly some of the overwhelming support Obama enjoys from the black community isn’t purely grounded in policy substance).

This is why Obama has so much to lose if he persists in making such a boor of himself. His personal approval ratings have been trending higher than his policies throughout his presidency. As he becomes less likable, there’s not a lot for the Democrats to fall back on. The White House communication shop’s “cowbell” strategy shows that they don’t know how to sell anything on the merits. They’re selling Obama selling the merits. It’s the celebrity endorsement style of political argumentation, and it’s getting stale.