Obama paints Trump as post-ideological

I didn’t watch President Obama’s speech to the convention tonight. By all accounts, it was an outstanding one. If so, I’m not surprised.

Here’s a passage that caught my attention when I read it:

[This election] is not just a choice between parties or policies, the usual debates between left and right. This is a more fundamental choice about who we are as a people. . . .

[W]hat we heard last week in Cleveland wasn’t particularly Republican and it sure wasn’t conservative.

I agree with the final sentence. But I wonder whether characterizing the contest this way helps or hurts Hillary Clinton.

Americans are thought to be, and probably are, sick of “the usual debates between left and right.” If Donald Trump has moved the election beyond that “usual debate,” won’t a great many voters give him credit for doing so?

Similarly, the American electorate is not enormously fond of Republicans and conservatives. If Trump is neither, might not a great many give him credit for that too?

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