It’s the height of summer and one of the fun new traits of the ever-expanding political campaign season is the newfound importance of the Summer Campaign.  Normally a time for politicians to visit festivals, fairs, and parades, the summer months have become in recent years a critical time for political campaigns, as they prep the landscape for the fall battle.

It is too early and too wasteful to spend heavily on television advertisements for most of the Congressional level players – leaving plenty of time for public policy announcements and PR stunts.  For example, State Sen. David Cappiello unveiled a series of energy-related proposals to reduce the cost of energy in Connecticut – from expanding the use of safe, clean nuclear energy to ending ethanol mandates.  Meanwhile, the Democratic challenger to Chris Shays, ‘Jimmy’ Himes, walked across Fairfield County on the theory that what voters really want to see is a very sweaty guy.

But when you are running for President, the summer season isn’t just for fried dough and the Moosup V-J Day Parade anymore.  Amongst planning for the National Conventions and fundraising, candidates are staking out their general election campaign themes.  For presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama – the candidate of “change” in the race, this means, well, changing positions.

After a primary campaign that was animated by the vigor and vitality of thousands of young liberal activists across the country, in which Sen. Obama pledged his commitment to preserving the post-Watergate finance reforms in Presidential politics, he callously wiggled out of the promise after discovering that he could raise more outside of the system.

After defiantly declaring that he would debate foreign policy with John McCain “anywhere, anytime”, Senator Obama responded to McCain’s town hall forum proposal with a limp-wristed “the usual debates plus two more when no one is watching” counter-offer.

And after spending more than a year worth of primary campaign decrying U.S. military involvement in Iraq and pledging an unabashed retreat from that nation, Senator Obama - briefly – attempted to refine that position over the holiday weekend.

Obama knows and is sensitive to the fact that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did their work on Sen. John Kerry starting in August of 2004, and is already hostile to any attempt to “swift boat” his candidacy – as has become a shibboleth for Democratic politicians everywhere.  The summer heat should not be a fair excuse, though, for wholesale position changes from the “change” candidate.