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Highlands Today

Flip-Flopping Is Making Presidential Campaigns Banal

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Highlands Today

Published: July 28, 2008

You've got to give it to Barack Obama. He took the bait and ran with it, scoring some valuable political mileage abroad. But the question is -- do Americans really care that the Germans and the French love Obama -- enough to give him a ticket to the White House? That remains to be seen.

For months, John McCain and the Republicans have endlessly hammered on Obama's lack of experience in international affairs. So, in response (as he put it,) he took a whirlwind tour of Europe and the Middle East, and wowed and wooed them like a rock star.

When almost 200,000 people in a foreign country show up to take a glimpse of a foreign presidential hopeful, albeit an American one, it's nothing short of a phenomena. But while Barack Obama The Rock Star is being present in full force, Barack Obama The Presidential Hopeful is becoming less apparent.

All this breathless anticipation and curiosity abroad may be reassuring to some Americans who feel the country needs to score more points on the international front but does it really clarify his candidacy here at home?

His stand on some issues still remains cloudy. While he's flip-flopped on some, he's stood steadfast against others, like his stand on the Iraq War. McCain should have used this to his advantage, only that he is flip-flopping, too.

Despite the length of this year's presidential campaign, none of the two candidates and what they stand for, is really apparent to the voters.

We know, or think we know, their stand on Iraq, but larger domestic issues have eclipsed the Iraq War since then. What are the two going to do to rev up the economy, the foreclosure crisis, the housing debacle, and the jobs? None of what they say stands out from each other, or even stands out at all.

To win voters these days, you got to win the independents, so you say nothing in the guise of saying it all. All this wishy-washy political campaigning may make sense to political pundits but is an injustice to the voters' intelligence.

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