A buzzword from the presidential campaign's action figures takes off

WASHINGTON -- Meet the transformers.

No, they're not toy action figures or electrical components. They're candidates for president, and transformational leadership is their calling card.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama announced he was running for president by declaring, "I want to transform this country."

Republican Mitt Romney launched his candidacy by telling people, "If there ever was a time when innovation and transformation were needed in government, it is now."

And Democrat John Edwards revved up his second presidential bid by offering "transformational change that will strengthen this country," as he phrased it in a recent Associated Press interview. ...

Republican consultant Rich Galen thinks that all the "transformational" talk is nothing more than the latest fad in presidential packaging.

"This is the 2008 version of 'soccer mom,'" he said, evoking a catch phrase from campaigns past. And, Galen adds, probably not a very smart one.

"Candidates that are on the edge, no matter how transforming their ideas are, don't really go very far because they just make people uncomfortable," he said. "American politics generally is glacial in its changes. The notion of having somebody burst upon that scene that just changes everything happens very rarely."

Wayne Fields, an expert on presidential rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis, said people are "fairly cynical about grandiose claims and terms, and what does it translate into specifically."

"The question of what we're really ready for is complicated," he said. "I'm all for change as long as it make me healthier, younger and richer."

•	A buzzword from the presidential campaign's action figures takes off Associated Press, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007 Byline: Nancy Benac, Associated Press Writer

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