Megan McArdle writes that she was disappointed by Obama’s speech, which “was basically standard Democratic Convention Boilerplate: nothing we haven’t seen before from Obama, or for that matter, every Democratic presidential candidate in living memory.” It’s understandable that Obama’s partisan (or is it post-postpartisan?) speech was a letdown for some, but it makes sense for Obama to try to become a generic Democrat. In this political climate almost any “Democratic presidential candidate in living memory” would be running away with this election. Obama’s not–because of (1) disaffected Hillary voters and (2) his extremist record, succinctly noted by Ramesh Ponnuru:
If Obama’s far-left voting record and radical friends rule out a landslide, then focusing on turning out the base by running as a partisan Democrat to shore up the Hillary vote seems like a safe–perhaps the only–path to 269 electoral votes.
