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  Change Is the Word

  Posted Friday, January 04, 2008 3:39 PM | By Christopher Beam

  As this totally chaotic—but, you gotta admit, totally thrilling—primary approaches complete anarchy, you can see the candidates' rhetoric running together. First, Republicans tried to “out-Tancredo Tancredo” by shifting right on immigration. Then Hillary and Obama ramped up their talk about fighting greedy corporations in an apparent attempt to “out-Edwards Edwards.”
  
  Now it looks like Obama, who threatens to suck independents away from McCain and Romney in New Hampshire, is influencing rhetoric on the Republican side, too. Here are clips from the latest McCain-Romney spitting match:
  
  First, Romney:

  “There’s no way that Senator McCain is going to be able to come to New Hampshire and say that he’s the candidate that represents change—that he’ll change Washington. He is Washington.”
  

  And the McCain camp’s response:

  “It is laughable that Mitt Romney would think anyone buys his latest act as an agent of change …”

  Granted, both candidates have at various times angled for outsider status. But in light of yesterday, it sure sounds like the GOP big dogs are trying to out-Obama Obama.

  [h/t Mark Halperin]

  Filed under: Barack Obama

About Christopher Beam

• Christopher Beam is a Slate political reporter.

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