Straight Talk Express?

Sen. John McCain has a reputation as an exponent of telling it like it is. For months he toured Iowa and New Hampshire in a big motor coach emblazoned with the monicker "Straight Talk Express." McCain effectively derailed the campaign of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by painting him as a waffler and panderer, a politician whose convictions blew with the wind and changed to fit the mood of the constituency he was addressing on any particular day. Given Romney's record, it wasn't so hard to make that case. But in what is certainly a far more skillfull application of the art, McCain has managed to avoid the tag himself. For, strange as it may seem, McCain has proved quite the master at political shape-shifting and has up to now emerged nearly unscathed from the process. That is likely to change.

That the Democrats are keenly aware of McCain's vulnerability on this matter was revealed in the recent Clinton-Obama debate in California. Sen. Barack Obama provided a preview of something we are going to hear a lot more in the general election when he made the observation that it looked like a few wheels had come off the Straight Talk Express. The needle drew hearty laughter from the Democratic crowd. There is no doubt that same needle will be sharpened to surgical dimensions and used with abandon by Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton once their own battle is concluded.

Some of the Arizona Senator's flip-flops include the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law (he now advocates revising it), his vote against the Bush tax cuts and their extension (which he now proposes to make permanent), his description of Moral Majority evangelicals as "agents of intolerance" (he now joins hands with them at every opportunity), his membership in the bipartisan "gang of 14" group on judicial appointments (he now pledges to appoint only judges acceptable to social conservatives), and his support for the recently defeated comprehensive immigration bill (he now talks of nothing but border security.) He even sometimes says he would today vote against his own bills if he had it to do over again. In every case, he began with a moderate position and then moved to the right to solidify his standing among Republican primary voters.

The far right media, led by Rush Limbaugh, continue to rail against his former apostasy and do not trust his recent return to conservative orthodoxy. More moderate Republicans are not necessarily pleased with some of his earlier positions but have correctly concluded he is the most electable and have resolved to follow McCain's mother's advice to "hold their noses" and vote for him anyway. Democrats are pleased that the likely Republican nominee has, in the past, shown occasional openness to some of their views and may be willing to deal if he's elected. Even so, they won't be reluctant at all to inspire the laughter of independents by pointing to the self-described straight talker's predeliction for political acrobatics.

Any way you slice it, there ought to be some fun in the offing once Clinton and Obama get through with each other and the winner starts going after the man from Arizona in earnest.