Obama: A sudden move to the center
Is Obama "lurching" with "reckless abandon" toward the center or is he "slowly and subtly" winning an election?
Forgive me, said Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post. In a column I wrote last week, I tried to list Barack Obama’s recent “brazen reversals of position” since securing the Democratic nomination for president. What I failed to realize at the time was that he “was just getting started.” In the space of a single week, this former darling of the extreme Left has also now: applauded the overturn of Washington D.C.’s handgun ban; denounced late-term abortion; promised to expand President Bush’s “faith-based” initiative in funding religious social organizations; backpedaled on his pledge to end the war in Iraq; and come out in support of the same domestic-wiretapping bill he had previously promised to filibuster. So is Obama the conventional liberal populist he appeared to be during the primaries, or the pragmatic centrist of the past few weeks? “I have no idea. Do you? Does he?”
Obama’s “dash to the center” is remarkable not just for its speed, said Rich Lowry in the New York Post, but for how it “falsifies the very essence of his candidacy.” With little to offer in the way of fresh policy ideas, Obama so far has based his entire campaign on a promise to practice “a new, more forthright and uncalculating politics.” It therefore seems odd, to put it mildly, that he’s suddenly indulging in such blatant calculation. “Tacking gently toward the center” is what most presidential candidates do come the general election, said Bob Herbert in The New York Times. But Obama isn’t so much tacking gently, as “lurching with the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash,” among the idealistic 20-somethings and grass-roots activists who put him where he is today.
What Obama’s doing, said Andrew Sullivan in the London Sunday Times, is “slowly and subtly” winning an election. If the outraged partisans on the Left and Right study what he’s said in recent weeks, they’ll realize that Obama’s supposed “bald reversals” are actually small “adjustments” that are largely consistent with what he’s said all along. Obama was always a believer in the value of faith-based social programs, for example, and has long supported the right to own guns. He always said we needed to be as “careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in.” To take these positions is “not a manifestation of cynicism,” but proof that Obama is the Republican Party’s worst nightmare: a charismatic and cunning strategist who knows that the center is where presidential elections are won.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Today's political cartoons - April 27, 2024
Cartoons Saturday's cartoons - natural gas, fundraising with Ted Cruz, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Aid to Ukraine: too little, too late?
Talking Point House of Representatives finally 'met the moment' but some say it came too late
By The Week UK Published
-
5 generously funny cartoons on the $60 billion foreign aid package
Cartoons Artists take on Republican opposition, aid to Ukraine, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published