I had a conversation with a friend yesterday who was thinking about voting for Barack Obama. His reasoning was that the Senator would be a strong moderate. Today, I forwarded him this Jonathan Martin (politico.com) post on the two Presidential candidates and the members of their own parties who have chosen not endorse them. Here is an excerpt:

“My colleague Ryan Grim and Kristen Coulter and Bob Cusack from The Hill have stories today detailing which members of Congress have not yet endorsed their party nominee.

For McCain, it's an assortment of outliers in the conference, anti-war members and hard-right conservatives who can't stomach McCain's views on issues like immigration.

For Obama, it's more old-fashioned CYA politics, with moderate and conservatives from rural and largely white districts worried about a being linked to a liberal national Democrat.” 

(http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0608/The_holdouts.html)

The difference is clear.

While John McCain continues to have some issues with the far reaches of our own party, Barack Obama is having problems with moderates within his own. Isn’t this telling?

Make no mistake about this election; this is an election between a mainstream conservative senator with a history of bipartisan work and one of the most liberal members of the Senate (ranked most liberal by the National Journal in 2007).

While this reality has been masked by his oratory and clever branding, we as a party (and responsible citizens) cannot let Senator Obama misrepresent himself as a centralist. How many times has he crossed the aisle to get something done for the American people? How many times did he put his neck on the line and went against his own party? What has he done to show that he values his country over his party?

While I expect that Senator Obama wants what he thinks is best for the country in his mind, we need only look to actions by moderate members of his own party to see how out of touch his views are to the average American.

Moderates, Independents, and “Reagan Democrats” should take note.