jducoeur | Obama

I feel like I should say this, since it seems an unusual viewpoint. (At least, here in the MA Reality Warp.)

Obama's been getting a lot of flack for his modest but non-trivial tack towards the center since winning the nomination. There have been great cries of flip-flopping, betrayal, and stuff like that, mainly from the left (although a lot from the opportunistic right). It's somewhat overstated -- some of his "changes" have been from what people wanted to hear than what he actually said -- but there's no question that he's tweaking his message.

Let's be clear: he's done *exactly* what I expected him to. More specifically, with the notable exception of the FISA vote (where I disagree with him, but he's far from the only Senator who made that particular mistake), he's done more or less exactly what I *wanted* him to do. His tactics are pretty much exactly why I voted for him.

While I may despise the Republicans, I am *not* by the usual American definitions a Liberal. I'm basically a soft libertarian. "Centrist" isn't an insult in my vocabulary -- insofar as it means "really not aligned with an ideological movement", it's a compliment.

Obama is proving himself to be exactly what I thought of him: a ruthless pragmatist. So far, I still suspect he has some principles, but he is neither a saint nor an ideologue. Since many people *want* a saint and an ideologue, they're feeling betrayed.

What *I* want is a repairman. So far, he still looks like the best candidate for that. Tacking to the center is entirely necessary to do that job -- a major part of repairing the system is getting the communication lines working again -- so I'm more than happy to see him doing it. In my book, non-ideological, practical government is the change I most want to see...

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People who thought he was a Progressive, read neither his books nor anything about his track record.

a major part of repairing the system is getting the communication lines working again

Hell, yes.
On my side, it's just a massive, ugly case of burnout. They've been running scared for years, and Liberals have become more than a little gun shy.
But you don't win by being gunshy. And, if you will, the real revolution Obama, as well as Howard Dean, brings to the table is the organization, the drive to bring more people into the political process, even if they don't 100% agree with you.
That's a worldview that's such a whiplash from the "50+1" Bush/Rove stratagem that I suspect we've not even begun to grasp the enormity of it's effects of the political ecosystem. And I say that even if Obama looses; the ability to raise that money is going to fall to someone else, as it already is to some downrace folks.

And, in deference to both yourself and

goldsquare, I think Obama is a Progressive -- but not in the narrowly defined way we're used to, today. Despite the occasional attempt to compare McCain to Teddy R, Obama, in both politics and popularity, resembles Teddy far more than McCain does. It's the kind where the layers of The Great Society are peeled back, and we get back to the core of the movement -- social justice, worker's rights, infrastructure building, protection of the weak form the strong.
Americans, in my opinion, have become so tied up with the politics of the moment, of protecting or destroying entities like Abortion rights, Social Security, and so on, that we've forgotten why we really fight for or against these things. Obama, at his best, helps us to remember that "both" sides have stakes and a hand in this game, and it's OK to let that happen.
Anyway. Thanks for posting this.

I think Obama is a Progressive -- but not in the narrowly defined way we're used to, today.

Which I don't necessarily mind, mind.

I am a great believer in government and society that *works*. My ideals are broadly libertarian, but I use the small l deliberately -- I think that Libertarianism, carried to extremes, breaks down just as badly as Communism, Socialism, or all those other isms.

Or to put it another way: my most fundamental principle, the one that I decided back in college would define my worldview (and thanks to

jimpage363 for helping me with that), is Balance. Most of the times that society and government truly fuck up is when they lose sight of Balance.

At the moment, America is way the bloody hell *out* of balance, knocked to the right by some very clever and manipulative bastards. To the extent that a rational and moderate application of Progressive values moves things back towards balance, I think that's generally a positive step. But I don't actually want to see that movement "win", any more than I do the Conservatives, and for exactly the same reason: "winning" usually means just another extreme, just as out of balance and broken as the previous one.

(This rant, BTW, brought to you by the constant barrage of emails I get from MoveOn and the DSCC, who I have come to dislike nearly as much as I do the other side. I may be the enemy of their enemy, but I am *not* their friend. My detestation of MoveOn has become deep and abiding, as I've watched them utterly betray the name and concept that I gave money to back in the early days.)

Anyway -- I broadly agree with your assessment, which matches my observations of Obama. He shares many of the central ideals of the left, but like I said, he is *not* an ideologue. I expect him to make progress on those fronts (heaven knows it's a target-rich environment for improvement), but I also expect him to gore a lot of sacred cows in the process, and to compromise frequently. Which is fine by me -- that's how successful government operates...

The problem on his FISA vote isn't just that he voted wrong. First: he broke a promise; back in October 2007, he promised to support a filibuster of any bill that included telecom immunity. Second: he voted wrong for the wrong reason. He said that he would vote for the bill, but promised not to abuse it as President. In other words, he's counting on winning, and asking us to trust him with tyrranical powers. He misses the point: I don't want to keep George Bush from spying on me; I want to keep anyone from spying on me.

On the broken promise, let me be clear: I Do Not Care.

I mean, get real -- George Bush's single *worst* characteristic is his insane stubbornness. I not only do not demand that politicians stick to their word, I *insist* that they be flexible in the face of current considerations -- a year is a *long* time in politics, and it's foolishly naive to expect circumstances to remain constant. Sometimes that works against me. So be it: it's better than the Bushian alternative. If someone feels that an earlier promise was a mistake, I don't want them sticking to it just because they made a promise.

Other than that, I agree and am disappointed; as I said, it was a bad choice. But that one bad choice still leaves him well ahead of most politicians. Choosing a candidate is a matter of balancing concerns, and on balance he's still pretty well ahead in my book.

However, it should also be noted that I also *deeply* blame the geekerati and media on this one, for utterly fucking up the message. Everyone put nearly *all* the attention on the telecom immunity provisions, which was idiotic -- not only did that earn a gigantic shrug from the populace, I suspect I'm not the only one who feels that those immunity provisions were the *right* thing to do. (As I remarked in another journal, there's a reason why Truth commissions start with amnesties.) That muddied the waters badly, and distracted attention from the far more important and dangerous aspects of the bill, that were changing the rules going forward. Had the message been focused there instead, and publicized properly, I suspect we would have had a different outcome...

George Bush's single *worst* characteristic is his insane stubbornness.

Or as Stephen Colbert put it, "If he believes something on Monday, he will still believe it on Wednesday... no matter What Happened Tuesday." I agree that refusal to change is a more common and dangerous fault among politicians than is over-eagerness to change.

there's a reason why Truth commissions start with amnesties.

Yes, but they do that in exchange for getting the Truth, just as North and Poindexter were immunized so they wouldn't have an excuse for not testifying about Iran-Contra. The recently-passed telecomm immunity stuff is a pure give-away; it doesn't require any truth in exchange. (Although I confess, what offends me most about it is that it ratifies the central thesis of the entire GWB presidency: "the law is what the President says it is, not what Congress has passed and the President has signed.")

Anybody observing U.S. politics for more than a few years who is still surprised to see candidates (of either major party) moving to the center as soon as they've wrapped up their party's nomination has a learning problem.

...

...Obama's message has, all along, been one of rapprochement and healing between the polarized sides of our nation, and of bringing everyone into the political process together.

How in the blue blazes could he do that without tacking to center?

Saying "we want healing, and reconciliation, and unity - but the Other Side has to accept our agenda in its entirety, no compromises" is exactly what Bush did. The Republicans would loathe it just as much as so many of us hated the Bush-Rove steamroller, and the nation would continue merrily on its polarized, faction-warring way.

That "We win; it's your turn in the Sucks To Be You barrel!" attitude is exactly how long-term feuds / wars build, and it really, really isn't worth it.

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