The View From Here . . .

By Bob Morgan, Jr.

Perhaps predictably, presumptive Democratic candidate Barack Obama has begun to move to the right in recent days. This presents opportunities both to Mr. Obama and his presumptive Republican opponent, John McCain.

Examples of this movement have abounded in recent days. Some issues are purely symbolic. Mr. Obama, who previously said that he was no longer wearing a flag lapel because it has become a substitute for true patriotism, now very often sports a lapel. Mr. Obama previously refused to disown his controversial longtime pastor, Jeremiah Wright, saying he could no more disown the black community. Later, however, he did reject Reverend Wright after the pastor made a series of inflammatory speeches.

But there have been changes of position on much more substantive issues. Mr. Obama tacked right in criticizing the Supreme Court's decision striking down the death penalty for child rapists. More significantly, as a longtime advocate of gun control, Mr. Obama nevertheless came out in favor of the Supreme Court's decision in the Heller case. On the issue of partial birth abortion, Mr. Obama appeared to say in an interview that the procedure could not be justified on grounds of a woman's mental distress, although he later issued a confusing clarification of these remarks.

Mr. Obama also seems to have moved back from his strong anti-NAFTA trade stand, explaining that his own rhetoric could get "overheated and amplified" and has backed off his support for a filibuster in the Senate of changes in the FISA surveillance law. And despite professed support for public financing of campaigns, Mr. Obama has announced that he will not be using public funds in the general election.

There also may be movement on Iraq. Mr. Obama's website still recites his pledge to draw one to two brigades out of Iraq each month and "have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq in 16 months." However, there seem to be considerable backing and filling from the Obama camp on this pledge. The senator will be embarking on a factfinding mission to Iraq and at news conference, Mr. Obama would not directly answer whether he would in the future change his 16-month timetable.

These changes in position by Mr. Obama are not unalloyed good news for the John McCain camp. A central Republican narrative is that, in addition to being too inexperienced to be president, Mr. Obama is also too liberal. Republicans frequently point to a survey in the nonpartisan National Journal that shows Mr. Obama to be the most liberal senator, and the GOP likes to combine this finding with symbolic issues like the lapel and his worshiping in Reverend Wright's pews. Now, however, Mr. Obama's suddenly nuanced views make this case more difficult to make. As Rich Lowry pointed out this week, Mr. Obama may feel that in a bad year for Republicans, he merely needs to be a minimally acceptable Democrat, and so "minimally acceptable he aims to be."

On the other hand, Mr. Obama has problems of his own. This week, he was attacked from left by Bob Herbert of The New York Times , which accused the senator of "lurching right when it suits him, and he's zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that's guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.". Perhaps he can withstand criticism like this from people unlikely to vote for Mr. McCain. But to the extent that Mr. Obama's resonance with voters comes from a belief that he is a different, less calculating candidate, the barrage of changed positions may give some potential supporters pause.