In yet another move away from the kind of campaign his supporters would have expected of him not so many months ago, Barack Obama has effectively rejected John McCain’s invitation to do multiple town hall type debates across the country in the period leading up to the conventions. He is agreeing only to the standard three debates after the conventions, in a variety of arranged formats. Though not unexpected at this point, his decision is a complete turnaround from the candidate he portrayed himself as barely three months ago. As even the AP writer notes:

In May, when a McCain adviser proposed a series of pre-convention appearances at town hall meetings, Obama said, “I think that’s a great idea.”

Why is Obama unwilling to give voters this almost unprecedented chance to really get to know him and McCain in a relatively freewheeling and open context? It’s the kind of thing that those longing for change in the American political system always say they want — that is, a campaign based more on debate and discussion, and less on 30 second television ads and choreographed appearances.

The reason given by the campaign for rejecting these debates is strikingly disingenuous:

Advisers to the Illinois senator, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss strategy, say Obama is reluctant to take chances or give McCain a high-profile stage now that Obama’s the front-runner.

Excuse me? Have they looked at the polls lately? Obama and McCain are effectively neck and neck, as they certainly well know. And, really, Obama has never had anything like a prohibitive lead in the polls. The argument that a front-runner shouldn’t give his opponent an opening has a certain Machiavellian legitimacy when it is true; when it’s not true, as in this case, it is the height of cynicism. (Welcome to the new political landscape of this Obama era!)

Ironically, cynicism is the most recent charge that Obama has made against the John McCain campaign. He has also called McCain’s recent ads “juvenile” and “distracting.” What better way to bring the campaign back down to the level of addressing the concerns of the voters than by doing these multiple town-hall debates and taking the questions of those voters? Each successive debate would allow the themes which arise to be followed-up upon and developed. The distinctions between the candidates and their real plans for governance would get an airing unlike any that has occurred in anyone’s recent memory of presidential elections. The McCain campaign’s response to Obama’s rejection of these debates could also be described as juvenile by the ever-so-serious Barack Obama, but it happens to be right on the money:

“We understand it might be beneath a worldwide celebrity of Barack Obama’s magnitude to appear at town hall meetings alongside John McCain and directly answer questions from the American people, but we hope he’ll reconsider,” spokesman Brian Rogers said.

And if he doesn’t reconsider, the McCain campaign has a perfect right to pound him on it from here to kingdom come. There is every reason to assume, at this point, that Barack Obama is simply afraid to have to defend his positions and policies in detail in a public forum. He’s just hoping that he’ll be smooth enough to finesse his way through the three more stilted debates in the fall, or that he’ll float through them on his aura and make up for any shortcomings by spending his unprecedented treasure-chest on a gazillion TV ads. It’s genuinely disappointing. Those of us who didn’t particularly like Obama’s policies, but welcomed the breath of fresh air he seemed to promise, now no longer have any reason to cut him any slack. He’s a pure politician (and there’s nothing pure about that). The only way in which he now appears to be a different kind of politician is the incredible degree to which he believes he can pull off being totally disingenuous.

And it’s just one more reason to wonder how it is that people who supported Barack Obama six months ago can still support him. He has modified his positions significantly on troops in Iraq, on offshore drilling, on gun control, on campaign financing, on the death penalty, on Jeremiah Wright and his church, on his grandmother, and on and on. If you agreed with him before he started changing his mind, then how do you continue to wholeheartedly support someone who appears so willing to adjust his beliefs for political convenience?

McCain is no paragon of purity, and neither is any politician, but compared to Obama he presents a model of a well-centered candidate who offers a plain WYSIWYG honesty. That’s precisely why he is unafraid of the kinds of unpredictable town-hall debates away from which his opponent is simply running scared.

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