Noam Scheiber disagrees with me when I wrote:

I think the Miller speech was fantastic, as I said. But I do think that if it had been delivered by a Republican it would be seen as a major liability for Bush–largely because the press would buy [the Miller=Buchanan] spin. I think the Bush campaign believes that the counter-spin that Miller’s a Democrat will defuse that sort of thing; “the Republicans weren’t mean. Zell Miller’s a Democrat.”
I think the gamble will pay off. But expect a blizzard of spin from those who want to Buchananify the speech.

He then writes in response to me — and others who make a similar point:

Forgive me if I’m not persuaded. The idea that swing voter-types watching the speech (or listening to soundbites of it) will be reassured by Miller’s partisan affiliation rests on the assumption that swing voters care about partisan affiliation. But, of course, by definition being a swing voter means you don’t.

Scheiber may be right that the Miller speech didn’t do the job I suspect it did. But I think this argument here is more word game than anything else. Swing-voters or independents care very much about partisan affiliation — when the affiliated partisans aren’t loyal to their own side. Who are the popular politicians in the world of moderates, swing-voters, independents, centrists etc? McCain, Giuliani, Specter, Jeffords, Lieberman etc. Scheiber might think these guys are all popular because of their policies but I think that’s contradicted pretty obviously by reality. The swing-types like “mavericks” and other types who don’t toe the party line. I don’t think I need to get too deep in the details for most people to realize their popularity is not based solely on substance but also on their “independent” style.