Getting to Know You

By Eric Pfeiffer | July 29, 2008 11:57 AM | | Comments (0)

As I argued in an earlier post, John McCain is hoping this is a tortoise vs. hare race in his race against Barack Obama. While McCain lacks high-profile events or huge crowds, he is making intimate contact with voters in his signature townhall settings. Their bet is that voters will go for the candidate they know over the candidate they like.

Richard Cohen's latest Washington Post column compares the two candidates' records and finds Obama an unknown quantity, while conversely listing McCain's legislative and personal accomplishments, particularly those that run counter to party orthodoxy.


Matthew Yglesias says Cohen is playing favorites and that Obama is not a blank slate if you look at his policy positions:

Now in an ideal world candidates for office might release statements, speeches, documents, etc. about their policy ideas. People could scrutinize these ideas.

But NRO's Mark Hemingway questions Yglesias' standards of judgment:

So why again is Yglesias insisting Cohen give Obama credit for his stated intentions rather than his comparaitively small record of achievement?

Ed Morrissey says Obama is deliberately vague:

That doesn't make Obama an "unknown", as Cohen's headline reads, but a cipher.  Obama deliberately obfuscates his positions in order to make his outlook as opaque as possible.

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