Is Obama actually moving to the center?
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It is a telling sign of where American politics is now headed that last week several leading conservative voices proclaimed Barack Obama had seen the conservative light and many leading liberal voices accused him of being a sellout.
At one extreme, The Wall Street Journal bizarrely claimed that Obama was now running for George W Bush's third term. On the other, liberal blogger Arianna Huffington accused him of making a "very serious mistake" by agreeing to a new wire-tapping law. And leading left-wing blogger Markos Moulitsas accused Obama of "unnecessary stabbing" of political allies. Neither side, I'd say, is right -- the truth is more muddy. However, if you want proof that Obama is one of the shrewdest -- as well as one of the most inspiring -- politicians in recent history, last week is hard to refute.
Obama began it with a full-throated defence of patriotism, in front of two large American flags, invoking his white family and its history of military service. He went out of his way to praise General David Petraeus and to condemn the attack by the antiwar group Moveon.org on him as "General Betray Us".
Obama went on the next day to brazenly coopt one of Bush's signature policy innovations, funnelling public money to the social services of religious organisations. He ended the week by dropping his previous long-held position on a fixed timetable for withdrawal from Iraq in favour of a "re-fined" strategy of withdrawal as soon as prudently possible after consultations with generals on the ground.
All of this caps a flurry of small adjustments in the postprimary phase. We now know that Obama can live with mass wire-tapping to gain antiterror intelligence, as long as it is placed under congressional law and oversight in ways Bush tried to avoid. He was fine about the Supreme Court's defence of gun rights in the recently decided Dick Heller case (in which a Washington DC security guard argued for his right to carry a gun to protect himself); he supported the death penalty in some extreme cases such as child rape; he ran an ad touting his own role (much exaggerated) on welfare reform; and he also plans to avoid any tax hikes on the middle class while adding some strong fiscal medicine to the well-to-do.
For good measure he was the only candidate last week with ads being broadcast on Christian radio. Yes, it was an independent group placing the ad, but its evocation of Obama's conversion to Christianity was a bold foray into deep Republican territory.
When you examine all of these adjustments, they are not quite the bald reversals the extreme partisans on both sides are claiming. Obama's position on Iraq, for example, has always been framed around the formula that the US should be "as careful getting out as we were careless getting in".
His pledge of a fixed timetable for withdrawal was always going to be subject to empirical shifts on the ground in Iraq. Being careful does not mean sticking to fixed withdrawal plans regardless of reality.
Obama, after all, is not running for Bush's third term, but he is running after Bush's two terms. In the brutally real world, he cannot undo the Iraq invasion. He cannot ignore the pressing need for good intelligence gained through wire-tapping after 9/11. He cannot ignore Tehran's malevolence, while being more open to diplomacy than McCain is.
The picture of Obama as a big-time leftist was always wrong -- and more a function of the Clintons' need to marginalise him than of any accurate portrayal of his record. His 2002 speech against the Iraq war aired a prescient worry about unintended consequences, not a deep reluctance to use military force in any circumstances.
Obama has long been a committed Christian, even of a more liberal, mainstream variety than the Republican leadership. His embrace of faith-based programmes is therefore utterly unsurprising to anyone who knows him. (The one key difference between Bush's faith-based programmes and Obama's is that Obama's forbids religious charities from using public money to discriminate in hiring on the basis of faith.)
Obama also explicitly favoured the death penalty for child rapists and murderers in his book The Audacity of Hope. These are not, for the most part, U-turns or manifestations of cynicism. They are pragmatic adjustments made by a Democrat who wants to win.
This election will be about who can deliver the most change in a way that least disturbs an anxious electorate. McCain reassures in as much as he is obviously not a simple heir to Bush and Dick Cheney. But his refusal to countenance any tax increases or entitlement cuts in a debt-laden America, and his visceral hostility to diplomacy and nuance in the politics of the Middle East, worry many who have been rattled by the reckless rigidity of the Bush years.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article42...
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Do you really think that with the dems having a super majority in the senate and control of the house that there will be any bipartisonship? Not on your life. This 1992 all over again. With having total control over everything for 2 years and then not getting anything concrete done and blaming republicans for dragging there feet. The only difference is we do not have a centralist person as president. Meaning alot more spending and alot higher taxes.
Hoodie1991 3 years ago
All, candidates move towards the center in the general election. They have done so for every election.
AdDigit 3 years ago
it is a surprise when 1. Obama is the "change" candidate
2. Obama should be standing up for democratic policies instead of agreeing with republican ones, especially because republican policies are what weve had for the past 8 years.
3. Its also despicable because these clearly violate separation of church and state (and obama knows constitutional law)
So it isnt a much a surprise of omg but its a surprse of dissappointment.
RationalLiberty 3 years ago
Looking at his voting record shows that he is genuinely progressive, but it's clear that by moving to the center in the GE will give him the opportunity to turn some red states blue which is great, and he wouldn't gain much ground in the battleground states if he touted his pro-choice record lol.
ngarey 3 years ago
Any ideas on how to gauge the actual governing philosophy of Obama after he moves from Election Mode?
For me? I don't have a clue. He seems to be genuinely a good man, and he clearly understands that to get things rolling in America again a lot of compromised positions will be necessary if what is impt to him more than anything is a 2nd term.
There is no precursor to predict the extent to which his centrist-shift is merely an electoral strategy.. or a preview of everything else to come.
quicksite 3 years ago
Are people really surprised that a candidate would move to the center in the GE? Fucking idiots everywhere.
ngarey 3 years ago