WHAT'S THE FRENCH FOR DEJA VU?:

Obama's Enigma (David S. Broder, July 13, 2008, Washington Post)

Obama's case is more challenging than the typical candidate's post-primary adjustment. For one thing, he is more opaque than the usual nominee. No one in recent decades has emerged as the party standard-bearer from so truncated a political career: four years in the U.S. Senate, during which he has yet to lead on any major domestic or foreign policy issue, preceded by largely anonymous service in the Illinois state Senate.

There have been few occasions when Obama's professed beliefs could be tested against his action. And in the fight for the nomination, virtually no issues emerged on which Obama's stands were seriously challenged by his opponents.

He won by convincing a narrow majority of Democratic voters that he could mobilize otherwise distrustful and alienated citizens with his promise to change Washington and to introduce a more open and less partisan brand of politics. Because his personal credibility was such a key to his success -- and remains so -- the changes now occurring in his positions have a significance far beyond themselves. [...]

Obama will be in trouble only if the pattern continues to the point that undecided voters come to believe that he has a character problem -- that they really can't trust him.

Although John Kerry had done nothing in the Senate for longer than Mr. Obama has, he was similarly a cipher coming out of the primaries and, likewise, the first impression people got of him was of a guy who had no core. The inability of liberal Democrats to run on what they actually believe can't help but make them seem untrustworthy.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 15, 2008 10:26 AM