Washington Post Poll: No Enthusiasm For McCain

Dana Milbank does a great job of pointing out the many dance steps to the left and right McCain will need to continue to pretend he is independent, while also appealing to his base. In the end, he should probably just go all out to the right, as it seems he is making nobody happy with his constant flip-flops, clarifications and other policy alterations:

While probable Democratic nominee Barack Obama follows the conventional path of sprinting to the center, McCain’s route has had more turns than a Macarena: slide to the right on judges and guns, jump to the left on climate change and foreign alliances, pivot to the right on taxes and Iraq.

A glance at the new Washington Post-ABC News poll explains McCain’s back-and-forth. Fifty-four percent of Obama backers are "very enthusiastic" — giving him plenty of room to run to the middle. But just 17 percent of McCain supporters feel that way. Only 13 percent of conservatives are very enthusiastic about McCain, compared with nearly half of liberals who feel strongly about Obama.

The truth is that McCain is caught between a rock and a hard-right place. And there is really no room to maneuver, as his base is not in the mood for the slightest compromise. Bad for him. Good for sane government.