When Barack Obama first met Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation magazine, he
said, "Remember, the perfect is the enemy of the good." So in a week when the
conversation is rising about what the left should properly do when the presumptive
nominee appears to emphasize his moderate side, I'd like to excerpt at greater length
than usual in our weekly 7 Days in America blog an interesting conversation about
this with John Kerry -- it's always instructive when the '04 Democratic nominee
analyzes the '08 Democratic nominee -- and with the ubiquitous two leading ladies of
the left, Arianna and Katrina.

Three points first.

*The two most successful Democratic politicians on the past century, the only two to
win the presidency more than once, were renowned for their ability to keep options
open with strategic ambiguity. FDR and Bill Clinton often infuriated their supporters
and staff. But they figured out how to win and govern in a country more to the right
than our European parents.

In a debate on Hardball last week, I was asked about McCain’s flip-flops vs. Obama’s, which is like contrasting Bonnie & Clyde with an alleged jaywalker.

Of course, it should be no crime that a person or candidate changes her/his mind based on new information…until the Bush Team turned ignorance into resolution and John Kerry fell into the trap with his for-it-before-against-it on Iraq funding.

So if “flip-flopping” is a test, our Air America panel of Alter, Huffington and Reagan concludes that McCain certainly scores higher based on sheer frequency. For he’s probably done a 180 degree turn – or changed significantly – on tax cuts, offshore drilling, Social Security privatization, negotiating with Hamas, Roe v. Wade, the Religious Right, presidential public financing, rights for Gitmo detainees, and torture.

Why? McCain is trying to do the impossible – satisfy both the Far Right of his party and the progressive majority in America in order to win 270 electoral votes.

It will be forgivable that Obama opted out of the public finance system IF he appoints a White House "Democracy Czar" to obtain pro-democracy reforms, like repairing the broken presidential system he rejected.

I'm a life-long zealot for public funding of public elections but Obama's refusal to opt-in to the presidential system was a "no brainer" that any candidate -- whether McCain, Clinton – would have also done if in his shoes.

Yes he had pledged to opt in to the system if the Republican nominee did so. His reasons for reversing field, however, are politically compelling: