Senior Fellow Kevin A. Hassett

Hillary Clinton is taking a page out of Walter Mondale's playbook and asking voters this question about Barack Obama's mostly boilerplate platform: "Where's the beef?"

The question is resonating with seasoned political observers, who have been expecting a "Gary Hart moment" for Obama for some time.

Newsweek magazine columnist Robert Samuelson, one of the soberest and least-partisan voices out there, wrote last week of Obama: "If you examine his agenda, it is completely ordinary, highly partisan, not candid and mostly unresponsive to many pressing national problems."

Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, a keen policy observer, said: "Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama both dropped major economic addresses this week, and their most distinguishing feature was that they were nearly indistinguishable."

Yet a funny thing happened. Even in the face of the harshest press since these primaries began, Obama posted another impressive victory in Wisconsin. Hart's 1984 presidential campaign collapsed when he failed to deliver new ideas and was exposed as a gasbag. Obama, for the moment at least, seems immune to such attacks. The question is, why?

He's clearly benefiting in the Democratic primaries from three independent forces. His problem is that two of the three advantages disappear if he is the nominee.

Fatigue

The first is establishment fatigue. For 20 years, our political leaders have promised to address our most pressing problems, such as the broken tax code and unfunded entitlement programs like Social Security, and year after year we have made no progress.

Voters understand that a key obstacle is a political establishment in both parties that is so partisan that it has become dysfunctional. President George W. Bush would, if running for re-election, clearly have trouble overcoming this headwind, and Clinton's ship has been blown into the rocks by it as well.

From the beginning, everyone has underestimated this effect. Hillary had the Clinton machine, and tried to market her "inevitability" as the winner. But that spin should never have been convincing. If voters are looking for a new direction, it's bad for Bushes and it's bad for Clintons. It might not have taken a superman to overcome the Clinton machine; perhaps anyone could have done it.

Playing to Base

The second element supporting Obama's immunity to attack is the resonance that his policy stances have with Democratic primary voters. Sure, most of his plans are Democratic boilerplate, yet that works in a primary because the party's voters love Democratic boilerplate.

One might even argue that Obama's ability to generate enthusiasm for the Democratic agenda marks him as the kind of salesman the party has longed for.

A true post-partisan would split differences, concede the strength of arguments on different sides of an issue, and then put forth proposals right in the middle of the Democratic and Republican positions.

Obama has been calling for a new post-partisan America, but his proposals are, as Samuelson noted, as partisan as can be. We can all stop being partisan, he seems to be saying, provided that Republicans admit they are wrong about everything.

That hasn't hurt him with Democratic voters, because he is singing to the choir. But Republicans, and independents who often side with them on economic-freedom issues, might not be so forgiving.

Speeches Resonate

The final reason for Obama's success is his virtuoso political talent. People swoon at his speeches for a reason: They are terrific. His call resonates because Americans intrinsically and correctly believe they have an untapped potential for greatness.

It is in this regard that Obama's rhetoric is reminiscent of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. If he has faith in us, voters seem to sense, then we should, too.

Still, if he is the Democratic nominee, Obama will have to come to terms with the fact that two of his three greatest assets have disappeared. He will not be running against a Bush or a Clinton. He will not be able to assert that he is the candidate of sensible change while proposing a litany of policies from the left-wing playbook.

Back when Bill Clinton took office, there was an internal struggle between populists such as George Stephanopoulos and fiscal conservatives such as Robert Rubin. Rubin won, and Clinton shelved much of his party's leftist agenda.

Two Choices

For Clinton, that struggle could wait until he took office because his campaign agenda already included centrist policies such as business tax cuts designed to appeal to swing voters.

For the Obama campaign, that philosophical fight is likely to ensue the minute he locks up the nomination. His agenda is inconsistent with his rhetoric, but Democratic voters decided to give him a free pass.

That leaves Obama with two choices. Either he proposes a number of new centrist policies at the Democratic convention, or he heads into the fall devoid of beef.

Kevin A. Hassett is a senior fellow and director of economic policy studies at AEI.