Will Barack Obama Really Appeal to Centrists?
Barack Obama fascinates me.
He can give speeches like no one else in a long time. As I’ve said before, he reminds me of many a black preacher I heard growing up. He’s a black man that seems to appeal beyond African Americans to persons from various walks of life and states that have low concentrations of African Americans.
But he also troubles me.
Not in some sinister way, but in the way Centrist, including a few Republicans are falling in love with him. He seems to be picking up independents in the same way that John McCain is. In fact, the Illinois Senator is looked at in the same way as the Senator from Arizona, someone that can attract people from the other party. However, as far as I can tell, and I repeat, as I far as I know, while Mr. Obama’s cross-party appeal is big on style and short on substance, while Mr. McCain is the opposite.
Obama has one of the more liberal records in the Senate. In some cases, that’s not a big deal. McCain is far more conservative than people assume. What is different is that McCain has reached out to the other side at the risk of offending the GOP base. He was part of the “Gang of 14.” He reached out to Sen. Ted Kennedy, liberal icon/archenemy to craft an immigration deal that brought the wrath of many on the hard right. Many in the base don’t like him because time and time again he has gone his own way.
Froma Harrop explains:
He had the fiscal discipline to vote against the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, and the decency to complain that they unfairly favored the rich. He’s OK on the environment, concerned over global warming and against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He supported tighter fuel-economy standards and opposes torture. John McCain is not an embarrassment.
Then there is Obama. David Brooks offers his record:
Does The Changemaker have the guts to take on the special interests in his own party — the trial lawyers, the teachers’ unions, the AARP?
The Gang of 14 created bipartisan unity on judges, but Obama sat it out. Kennedy and McCain created a bipartisan deal on immigration. Obama opted out of the parts that displeased the unions. Sixty-eight senators supported a bipartisan deal on FISA. Obama voted no. And if he were president now, how would the High Deacon of Unity heal the breach that split the House last week?
Now, McCain could back away from his maverick persona as he has done on some occasions and that could spell trouble come November. But the thing is, McCain at least has a record of making his party’s base mad for not always being the loyal solider. Obama hasn’t done that.
In recent blog entry, my fellow blogger, Jeremy Dibbell wrote about seeing Obama in Boston. He really likes the candidate and he explains what it was like to see the Senator:
Was it worth it? You bet. It’s not every day that one has the opportunity to hear (and spottily see) the governor, two senators, a presidential candidate and 10,000 friends, all ready for a new kind of politics, a new way of doing things, and a new vision for America.
Maybe Jeremy sees something I don’t, but it’s hard to see how Obama will do things differently. Don’t get me wrong; even though I am a Republican, I would like to believe Obama could bring about a politics of unity instead of one of division. But I do wonder if Obama is the centrist hope. His actions don’t seem to live up to his words.
9 Responses to “Will Barack Obama Really Appeal to Centrists?”
Personally, I don't think Obama is advertising himself as a centrist. Instead, as illustrated by his references to Reagan, he is billing himself as the guy who is going to effectively sell liberal solutions to the masses. Reagan wasn't a centrist, but he was an effective face for conservative thinking.
As opposed to liberals, who already would support him, the answer is yes, regarding true centrists or moderates, for many who would vote GOP don't like McCain.
Hi Dennis, It's good to see this post for reasons of TMV balance.
Some of this was discussed in a post a few items down that also referenced the Brooks article. The most informative comment, I thought, was from mikkel, so you may wish to check it out. I will link the post, I hope.
I don't think Obama is a McCain or Lieberman type of centrist in which he votes sometimes with one group when he agrees with them and sometimes with another group. If that is what many Republicans or Brooks hope for from Obama, I agree they will be disappointed. I think he's selling something different (and this echoes Mikkel's comment).
Instead of sometimes voting Republican and usually voting Democratic, he will bring people from opposing viewpoints to the table more often. A republican will be able to criticize a proposal, probably in closed doors in a spirit of working together as opposed to scoring political points, and possibly the proposal will be changed/tweaked to account for this criticism more. That's the sort of centrism being promised.
Currently, both Democrats and Republicans develop some policy and then try to ram it down the throats of the minority party. Obama promises people with opposing viewpoints working together more often to find a solution they can handle. Of course, it won't be 50/50. If you look at his record and find evidence that this claim of centrism is false, then I think that is a reason to not trust Obama as a centrist. I think there is some evidence in his years as a legislator that it is a legitimate claim on his part.
Obama appeals to centrists because he is not a douchebag. The same thing can be said for McCain. McCain has opinions on the war I don't agree with, but unlike many in the GOP he doesn't feel the need to go calling anti-war folks traitors because of it. Someone once said that the increase in the “moderate” voting block has less to do with getting away the poles of left/right, and a lot more to do with our leaders not being/acting like ideological assholes.
It is this aspect of the otherwise without a doubt liberal Obama that appeals to centrists.
Perhaps it's worth adding that I'm a Barack supporter (so far) who's never listened to a complete speech of his. I'm not a big political speech kind of guy, though I do listen to snippets now and then. My favorite part of one of his speeches was not the flowery, but periodically moving, “on the backs of slaves” and “yes we can” moments. Instead it was a simple question where he stated that the last and most important question he and Michelle asked themselves when deciding to run for President was whether or not they SHOULD win, meaning if Obama did win, would it be good for the country. I like that a man stops to wonder whether he is really going to help people by following his ambition, because the truth is that no one is ready to be President of the United States. You just have to hope that you end up with more problems you happen to be good at than problems you are lousy at. I've never gotten the impression from Clinton or McCain that they wonder whether they would be good for the country if they became President. They are sure they are. As the cliché goes, if you know you are ready to be king, you aren't.
I only tell this story to be an example of an Obama supporter who's not sitting around swooning at beautiful speeches.
Maybe slamfu's explanation is better than mine.
I think the answer to the question is 'yes', with the qualifier being that you, yourself, don't have to be a centrist to appeal to centrists. You have to understand that Obama's economic policies are informed majorly by conservative development, but are still liberal policies. In crafting them, he has however shown the capacity to address flaws in liberal policy that in the past where only brought up by political conservative opponents. It means he's heard the right. He appreciates their developments, and he understands that there's a learning curve for liberals too. No one would accuse Newt Gingrich of truly being a centrist. He was, however, by some measures, a pragmatist, and Barack Obama has the capability to be that as well, in terms of actual policy, and he will appeal and has appealed to the center and right for his ability to communicate his ideas in a way that doesn't demonize or destroy his political opponents, and doesn't ridicule everything outside of the Democratic Party in the last fifty years.
I also disagree with your definition of a centrist. A centrist, in the ideal sense of the world, woudl be someone whose politics reflected the center of the political movements of America, the median political reality, or someone who voted nearly half and half. McCain and Leiberman, in the ideal sense, aren't political centrists. Neither is Barack Obama. Neither are people who self-identify as centrist.
Independent would be a better word than centrist, because independents are people who make decisions solely out of their own value system as opposed to loyalty to the party or fear of political reprecussion.
But even, this, I would argue, isn't always a positive, because then Strom Thurmond would be one of the greatest politicians alive for having his independently founded and upheld racist views.
What is neccessary in order to retain a level of appeal in American politics is the ability to communicate ideas on someone else's level, in someone else's comfort zone, in a way that will resonate to the widest possible net of citizens. It is the ability to make someone support or respect a policy proposal that they might otherwise oppose, or simply not support. It is also the ability to tie citizens in a common pursuit, such that the majority has a fluidity of allegiance to policy but a solidity of allegiance to the nation, and to each other. That is to say, the ideal leader can get people to support liberal or conservative policies by communicating those policies to them.
Barack Obama is capable of it. John McCain is capable of it. But what I've seen from John McCain that I haven't yet seen from Obama, is McCain's willingness to attack his opponents. When people say he hasn't called people a traitor, he has certainly implied as much about the opposition to the Iraq war in 2004 and 2005. He's shouted obsenities at politicians, proclaimed his knowledge, and developed a vindictive relationship with vindictive people in terms of his issue with the religious right. Though some anger, some resent, may be justified, it takes a bit of wind out of the sails when you realize that while McCain himself may be willing to support policies that aren't strictly conservative, that his way of communicating towards any of the policies his support, of communicating them to opponents of that policy, is lacking., because he's still prone to derision and ridicule. Hillary Clinton, however, would knock them both out of the park, because she intends, quite frankly, to have a political war with Republicans.
John McCain, when he does go over that line, doesn't do it because he's a cynical political player, he does it out of instinct and genuine frustration, but the fact that he still does it demonstrates flaws in his ability to communicate with opponents.
The battle v. extremism around the world extends here. It is good that we have two people vying for the center, as opposed to shoring up the 'base' (sounds like al-Qaeda talk) all but left for president, Obama and McCain. A sigh of relief.
I understand that you're a somewhat conservative Republican. It's only natural that Obama would make you somewhat uncomfortable. I appreciate the fact that you're being rational about it.
McCain is not some one I'd expect to govern with the in-your-face-divisiveness of George W Bush. But I see him out there pandering to the very people who have loudly denounced him as–I have to laugh–a member of the Gang of 14, someone who reached across the aisle to Kennedy and Feingold.
It makes me very uncomfortable.
Wouldn't he take action to fulfill his promises to them?