The media has hyped this election’s set of nominees as heralding a new era of postpartisan politics. John McCain is supposed to be the “maverick” favoring principle over politics. And Barack Obama is supposed to be the “postracial,” “postpartisan” visionary that will bring America together.

This was supposed to be the first “positive” campaign in memory with opponents who actually respect each other. Imagine that! After the intense bitterness of Bush-Gore and Bush-Kerry, we could look forward to an election season of serious debate over the direction of the United States, instead of dreading an endless series of attack advertisements come late October.

What we have seen emerging from the candidates, as the campaign heats up, has been nothing like what the media wants them to be. Both candidates have been markedly conventional in their policy positions and attacks on each other. John McCain talks almost exclusively about national security and the “experience” card, knowing that’s the only area where he has a big advantage over Obama. The Democratic nominee, for his part, has become markedly less positive in the weeks since wrapping up the nomination (and in what seems like his worst fundraising month).

It is true that Election Day is still four months away. The campaigns have time to move to the center and engage in real debate as the American people start paying more attention. In a sense though, voters in the primaries have been deceived. No Republican voted for McCain thinking he was truly “conservative” in the Christian-fundamentalist sense it has come to mean today. He won most early states, despite losing self-described “conservatives” in pretty much all of them. McCain won because of his “maverick” credentials, which have eroded precipitously in the eight years since his last presidential campaign.

For all of John McCain’s supposedly “maverick” principles, he’s established himself well within the Republican mainstream. The quixotic primary campaign of 2000 has been replaced by a conventional campaign no different than the two Bush campaigns--negative and pandering. McCain once opposed Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy when they were passed in Congress, but now supports making them permanent. To his credit, he is relatively pro-environment, but his plan to reduce carbon emissions is so watered down that it cannot be taken seriously. McCain has been in a long series of photo-ops with the fundamentalist Christian leaders he once condemned, while allowing Republican leaders to attack Obama’s wife, his patriotism and his religion without significant public or private condemnations.

Obama is no better than McCain. He does not have a single major policy position that differs significantly from the left wing of Democratic politics. He is somehow attempting to “unite from the left” and for all of his supposed bipartisanship, that has not been shown in the substance of his campaign. It’s unclear how Republicans are supposed to agree with such huge spending increases. Obama’s rhetoric on trade and the war has put off many moderates who don’t see the easy solutions (protectionism and a quick withdrawal) that he seems to see. Senator Hillary Clinton, in the latter stages of the primary, seemed far more likely to challenge Democratic orthodoxy than Obama, who was really running as the outsider/reformer candidate.

The Obama-McCain contest so far has been vacuous and conventional. The battle was supposed to be for the independents and the moderates in the center, but instead, both candidates are spending their time mobilizing their bases and placating the partisan powers-that-be on their respective sides. Maybe that will change as Election Day draws nearer and the “undecideds” become more important. More likely not.

The election season so far raises important question about how each candidate will govern as president. Both promise to work with both sides in Congress to reach agreeable solutions, but we certainly have not seen that in the rhetoric from both campaigns so far. For all of the hand-wringing over the bipartisanship in Congress, neither candidate seemed inclined to do much about it. That’s disappointing, considering why millions voted for these candidates and what they once offered, symbolically and substantively.

Stuart Baimel’s summer is insane. Make it even more so at sbaimel "at" stanford.edu.