While Barack Obama currently has an edge over John McCain in the general election, he should take steps to remove the interest of those small, specific segments of the activist wing of the party in voting Republican. (One could view McCain’s revisionism as his attempt to do the same thing, but I’m not sure anyone believes him.) The interest groups which are traditionally Republican but which could easily be removed from the picture are single-issue voters. Actually, they aren’t so much removed from the picture has their issue is defused, forcing those voters to concentrate on other policies, some of which they might agree with but which they won’t consider as long as their issue is on the table.
The obvious candidates are the issues of abortion and gun control. My personal favorite issue is individual liberty, and its corollary personal responsibility, which neither party is adequately addressing. This could be portrayed as a flip-flop, of course, or a change of heart, or a move to the center, but what it would be is a recognition that underneath that overwhelming issue, there might be more in common than we thought.
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