Barack Mundane Obama

How mundane has Barack Obama's campaign become?

Whether he’s reaffirming his long-held belief in faith-based programs or fudging his core convictions about government snooping, he is drifting away from the leadership he promised and into the focus-group-tested calculation patented by Mark Penn in his disastrous campaign for Hillary Clinton.

That's Rich - Frank Rich, of the New York Times, complaining from the left about the failures of Barack.

Mr. Obama’s Wednesday address calling for renewed public service is unassailable in principle but inadequate to the daunting size of the serious American crisis at hand. The speech could have been — and has been — delivered by any candidate of either party in any election year since 1960.

Meanwhile, Ralph Nader is grabbing onto Barack's betrayal of the left (FISA, for example) to drive a wedge and steal some support.

Nader's campaign, in an email to supporters, said today that the issue is the latest proof that Obama is not that progressive.

"From the beginning, we saw through Obama's "Change You Can Believe" mantra," the email says. "Obama is just another corporate candidate. At times, he might sound like a progressive. But he's not.

Nader's assertion is that being progressive means that you're not sold out to special interests. Which means there are no progressives to speak of, just liberals.

"That's why we're here," the Nader missive continues. "We're here to give the American people a choice in November. You can support the corporate candidates -- Obama and McCain. Or you can shift the power from the corporate candidates and the corporations to the people. And support Nader/Gonzalez. Increasingly, progressives and liberal Democrats are seeing the light and breaking away. What's your breaking point?"