redblueamerica.com

I don't think that Rick Perlstein intends to alarm me here, but he does. Guess which presidential candidate he is writing about here?

The plan, Miroff shows, was to rely on (the candidate's) shimmering idealism, his incorruptibility, his utter straightforwardness–not to mention his early and morally uncompromising antiwar stance–to draw brand-new strands into the Democratic coalition: the under-21 voters ... the new social movements, the conscience-stricken idealists of a baffled nation.

Sound like anybody you know? Because it sounds like Barack Obama to me. In actuality, Perlstein is writing about ... (wait for it) ... George McGovern. And if there's a patron saint of losing Democratic presidential candidates -- well, McGovern is surely it.

That's perhaps not fair. Perlstein suggests in his piece that Nixon and McGovern were pretty similar on the issues, but that Nixon had more of a mean streak -- and McGovern, a green campaign staff -- that allowed him to dominate the race. Somehow, though, McGovern's loss has come to mean pretty much whatever the observer wanted it to mean.

Still, there's this:

The plan was doomed from the start. A candidate who claims an identity apart from conventional politics must have a very deft touch once he pivots back to the regulars. Otherwise he just looks like a sellout, erasing the very foundation of the original appeal.

But there the caution for Obama. Shimmering idealism won't get the job done; he's going to have to take a few punches -- and throw a few back -- and still come out of it looking like an angel. That's a tall order.