McSame '08?

Statistics are pliable. You can bend them this way or spin them that way to emphasize your point of view. You're not lying, you're just pointing out the numbers you like, the ones that are most likely to be effective in proving your point.

Obama repeatedly hits McCain for voting with Bush 90% of the time. And according to Politifact, he is absolutely correct.

Since 2001, McCain has, in fact, backed the president’s position an average of 90 percent of the time. By congressional standards, that’s solidly partisan, but hardly marching in lockstep.

But citing the average also masks the fact that, "McCain supported Bush as infrequently as 77 percent of the time in 2005; and as high as 95 percent of the time in 2007." (Emphasis added.)

Politifact documents some of the reasons that helped to drive up McCain's 2007 score, "which was partly a reflection of the new political calculus in the Democratic-controlled Congress. That year, McCain missed more than half the votes on which Bush had a position, as he campaigned for the White House. But repeated votes on immigration and the Iraq war — two issues on which he was closely allied with Bush — as well as filibuster votes helped elevate McCain from one of the president’s chief Republican adversaries three years ago to one of his biggest supporters."

The list of reasons ignores the fact that McCain was being hammered by his rivals in the Republican primary for not being conservative enough. McCain deliberately veered right to bolster his coservative credentials.

Whatever you may think of the statistics and of McCain's policies, politics is so much about perception. And where perception rules, nuance is thrown out of the window. Candidates do move to the left or to the right to cater to more polarized audiences in the primaries, and they also move towards the proverbial center in preparation for the general election. The effective candidate is the one that can perform this transition without making it obvious. McCain's biggest mistake may not end up being his record but the sloppy and transparent transition he made between the primaries and the general election.



A couple of notes -- The post is not intended to suggest that Obama is alone in ignoring the nuances. The McCain camp does the same with Obama's record in claiming that he has the most liberal record in the Senate. Also, the argument about nuances in McCain's recent record should not be construed to mean that his record is anything but conservative for the most part.