"might well be a lesser-known quantity with enough marketable qualities for the media to lap up. He offers vague palliatives and standard conservative bromides designed to both confuse and assure the base"
If you replace conservative with progressive it sounds like you're talking about Obama.
The Old Obama, I mean. Heck, even the Recent Obama. But not the New Obama. The New Obama is starting to get quite definitive. For instance:
1 Warrantless wiretapping immunity
2 NAFTA! hip hip hooray!
3 Out of Iraq? That was overheated and amplified rhetoric...we're going to 'rethink' Iraq.
4 Public Financing - show me the money!
Of course these are only a few of the more egregious examples.
Thanks for your views. By the bye, which candidate are you supporting in November?
As a progressive, I'm duty bound to vote for the only progressive I see in the field.
You do the math.
You seem determined to reduce the field to just John McCain. But perhaps you have other agendas.