For whom the center holds

When I was in Washington last week, I strolled over to gaze at the White House because it knocks me out every time.

A mom asked her blonde ponytailed daughter what the building was.

"That's where Barack Obama lives," the 5-year-old said matter-of-factly, before requesting ice cream.

I wondered if her confidence had anything to do with the fact that she doesn't get viral e-mails smearing him as a radical black Muslim, or read Daily Kos where posters want to try him for treason for voting for the FISA bill or any editorial page gasping about his unprecedented shift to the center.

In this lull between Obama securing the nomination in early June and accepting it at the Invesco Field in Denver in late August, his campaign is doing some soul-searching to find the right general election pitch. It hasn't been the smoothest transition in terms of messaging and fundraising - and the 24-hour news cycle hasn't been his friend.

Any misstep from the minor (like that tacky presidential seal) to the boneheaded (volunteers removing head-scarved women from sitting behind Obama at a Detroit event) is covered in breathless detail. I frequently open agitated e-mails from readers determined that the latest flap will be the end of him, although I never seem to receive them when John McCain confuses Sunnis with Shiites (again).

Want me to spill the beans on the super-secret pundit code? We don't know what will stick and what won't. We need a little distance to see if a gaffe will congeal into a pattern (the Howard Dean scream underscoring the unhinged persona theme) or if it will be a one-day story.

Not that this is not how campaigns should be covered, mind you. But it is the glossy, issue-free infotainment bent of cable news that drives perception and polls far more than the Economist's thoughtful analysis of the candidates' jobs programs.

There's no time for reflection in the frenzied rhythm of the election cycle, which goes something like this: Candidate's surrogate says something stupid; media and operatives feign outrage; surrogate apologizes; media declare this will kill the candidate's chances; the other candidate's surrogate picks up the baton the next day; the cycle continues.

And Barack Obama is usually at the epicenter of the storm.

That's because this election is all about Obama, as the kindergartner outside the White House can see. Even McCain knows that. His real hope is that "hope" will flame out and he'll be the safe, practical choice bolstered by his lifetime of service.

Now would be a good time for Johnny Mac to march into the vacuum. There are some promising signs, like his long-awaited economic speech Thursday in Michigan, home of 8.5 percent unemployment (go Wolverine State!). He's shaken up his campaign and made it more centralized, adding an office in the strategic location of Farmington Hills in vote-rich Oakland County.

But even during the primary, McCain's campaign was never on fire. Part of that is it's hard to whip up much excitement for any Republican during what's clearly another good Democratic year. But the maverick has failed to excite and inspire people like he did eight years ago, partly because he's ditched a lot of his core reform message.

Instead, McCain has morphed into the GOP standard-bearer (inviting unflattering comparisons to the bumbling Bob Dole '96 campaign). He's spent a lot of time talking up conservative judges and courting religious right leaders (some so radical like the Rev. John Hagee that it calls his judgment into question). He's also flip-flopped on the Bush tax cuts and unbelievably on torture, after spending more than five years in the Hanoi Hilton.

We hear little of campaign finance, other than to rightly criticize Obama's opt-out. His message on alternative energy is a quasi-lurch to the left, but it's ultimately unconvincing given his thin record on the issue and eagerness to jump on the gas-tax holiday and drill for the fun of it bandwagon.

While diehard McCainiacs have eagerly awaited his move to the middle, it's been Obama making a play for independents, while trying to blunt the right's traditional attacks.

His shifts haven't been that pronounced, to be honest, other than his blatant about-face on expanded government surveillance powers. But hell hath no fury like liberal bloggers scorned, so Obama is taking his share of hits right now. Welcome to the club, Barack - you've passed the IQ test and it's a good place to be.

His measured position on troop withdrawals in Iraq didn't translate well into sound bites, but means we'll be less hasty in pulling out than we were jumping in. And not supporting a mental health exception for so-called partial birth abortion - a procedure that should only be performed when the mother's health is in danger - is just common sense.

"The center cannot hold," poet William Butler Yeats once wrote. And while that's prescient in party politics and often legislation, campaigns contradict that maxim.

Modern presidential elections are determined by the center - that 40 percent of us who can't swallow the rigidity and pettiness of either party line.

If McCain continues to cede this ground to Obama, it's game over.

Every day is lobby day in Lansing

John Kelly is old-school, God love him. The former state senator wasn't afraid to tell interest groups where to go.

You might recall that three decades ago, Chrysler was ready to go belly-up. The No. 3 automaker demanded $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees, as well as a $150 million loan from the state of Michigan and hundreds of millions in worker concessions. Oh, and six Detroit-area plants would get the ax.

That's where Kelly drew the line. As state Senate Banking Committee chairman, the Democrat told then-CEO Lee Iacocca the factories would stay open if he wanted his check.

"I had a hundred bankers in my office telling me I couldn't do that," Kelly recalls. "I told them all to back off."

In the end, Kelly triumphed and helped save 38,000 jobs. And yes, there was unreal tension and recall threats, same as what paralyzed the Legislature for months during last year's budget crisis. But that didn't faze him.

"You have to muster up the courage to do the right thing. You can shut the government down, but it goes to the institution's credibility," Kelly says pointedly. "People think you're a bunch of idiots."

In that magical time before term limits, lawmakers would actually write some of their bills or at least know what was in them. Committee chairs had real expertise in their fields, as opposed to today when sophomore House members, who've just mastered where the bathrooms are in the Capitol, run the show.

To say there's a leadership void in Lansing is a vast understatement.

That's why I hear these crass words far too often in committee meetings: "I'd like to thank the interest groups for helping us write the legislation."

It makes my blood boil.

That's gross incompetence at best and utter contempt for the democratic process at worst. At $80,000 per year plus perks, lawmakers should be able to do their own damn research without handholding (or handing over the pen) to lobbyists, who have their client's best interest in mind - not necessarily that of 10 million Michiganders.

Does anyone really think this is how government should work?

It's no wonder voters feel ignored - especially those of us in the middle. Republicans are beholden to Right to Life and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, while Democrats can't say no to the Michigan Education Association and UAW.

When lawmakers do bite the hand that feeds them - like on tax increases or school health insurance reform - lobbyists scream like their entire family was slaughtered and threaten to withhold money, endorsements and job offers.

And the beat goes on.

On Tuesday, the House once again demonstrated its uncanny ability to take up completely irrelevant measures while our economically annihilated state burns. The federal partial-birth abortion ban has been on the books since 2003, but Right to Life held the chamber hostage to push what lawmakers admit is duplicate legislation.

The bill is light on medicine but heavy on incendiary rhetoric, because this isn't about the rarest of rare procedures, dilation and extraction, reserved for when the mother's life is in danger. It's about politics and an organization desperate for a victory when many of its own members find its position on embryonic stem cell research medieval.

"I believe this is truly a sad day in the history of the Michigan Legislature," sighed state Rep. Rebekkah Warren, D-Ann Arbor. "We're letting a special interest dictate the actions of this Legislature."

Actually, it's just another day in paradise. Almost daily, groups from the Michigan Propane Gas Association to the American Cancer Society cram the Capitol and miraculously, new legislation often follows.

But Kelly hit upon something when speaking to a group of tobacco lobbyists years ago. No legislator on the panel was willing to look them in the eye and tell them the truth: Smoking bans were coming and they'd better get used to them. Never a wallflower, Kelly told them the score and was promptly thanked by several of Big Tobacco's finest.

Nowadays in Lansing, legislators lack the gravitas to tell special interests where they stand and just vote their conscience. That kind of gumption wasn't unique to Kelly, by the way; former Gov. John Engler wrote the book on it.

So dear legislators, it wouldn't hurt to think for yourselves once and awhile. You just might like it.

There is a fatal flaw in the current warped situation. If interest groups have carte blanche to write laws, Kelly notes they'll start wondering, "Why am I paying these people $100,000 if I can do it myself?"

It completely negates the need for lobbyists, one of the few growth occupations in Michigan. Little wonder that lobbyists routinely wax nostalgic for the good ole days pre-term limits and the Chamber has sounded the battle cry to extend them.

A few fair fights never hurt anyone. For lobbyists, they even can be good for business.