Obama: The Great Moderate-Conservative Hope?
One of the things that has been astounding me as of late is the abandonment by moderates and conservatives of John McCain. Many of them are jumping ship and going over to Obama, even though the Senator doesn’t share share their values at all. They talk on and on about how John McCain isn’t the McCain of old and that he’s become mean and nasty. While I will agree that the tone has become more negative and that focusing on people like Bill Ayers in the time of a economic crisis is silly, the thought that McCain is the 21st century version of George Wallace is silly. If you want nasty Republican tactics, let’s try the whole series of Willie Horton ads of 1988. Or how about the “Hands” ad by Jesse Helms in the 1990 Senate race where he used resentment over affirmative action to win another term? Or how about all those horrible rumors about John McCain fathering a black child in 2000? Those past campaigns did stoke racial fears in order to win. The McCain campaign’s “dirty” tactics, such as the celebrity ad, or now talking about Ayers, is child’s play compared to campaigns of the past.
At some point in the near future, I will write about why I as a moderate Republican support McCain, but this article by Victor Davis Hanson makes some very good points. He give some reason why some on the right might be jumping ship:
Instead I think what we are seeing again is an interesting phenomenon of the old nice/now mean McCain. A great many moderates and conservatives are worn out and tired of Bush and Bush hatred, the European furor, serial charges of racism and illiberalism, and finally, in their weariness, think that Obama will, in a variety of ways, just make all the ickiness go away–as if he will make all of us be liked abroad and end racial and red/blue fighting at home.
I can understand this. As a moderate myself, I am tired of Bush and Bush hatred. I long for it to be over. But, as Hanson notes, the cure might not be any better than the disease:
They should ask themselves whether Jimmy Carter restored American popularity with his human rights campaigns, praise of left-wing dictators, dialogue during the hostage crisis (cf. “The Great Satan”), boasts of no more inordinate fear of communism, etc., or whether Obama, in his Trinity/Acorn/Pfleger years, brought racial healing and understanding to Chicago.
Jimmy Carter came into office hoping to restore dignity to the White House after the nightmare of Watergate. But he didn’t do that and was out of office four years later.
My own guess, is that a lot of moderates and conservatives are in love with Obama. And like a new crush, you don’t see all the “blemishes” or where he might disagree with you. Obama is everything that Bush and to some extent, McCain is not: he is witty and urbane. He is well traveled and exudes a certain grace under pressure. He’s like the really cool guy at school that everyone just admires. Compared to a grumpy, old fuddy duddy like McCain, who wouldn’t want that?
I will admit, it’s hard not to look at Obama and think he can bring about better times in America. But to make a judgment based on the externals and not look at his beliefs is at the very least misleading.
But I think my fellow moderates and conservatives fail to see the record of John McCain is more in line with them. What matters more to me is not that Obama talks about hope and change, than about their records and if they share my values. When I think about it that way, then McCain comes out on top. He has a good record on the environment, has truly reached across the isle on issues such as climate change, campaign finance and immigration, and has been willing to incur the wrath of his party for the greater good.
Voting for Obama means we are voting for someone with a liberal ideology. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just not my thing. I’m sorry, but if you think voting for Obama will bring about a moderate government when he has a thin record of true bipartisanship and with substantial Democratic majorities in Congress, then you are fooling yourself.
There is a part of me that believes a few years from now, midway into an Obama first term, there will be a lot of mea-culpas from moderates and conservatives who will write tearful letters about how they were duped by Obama.
Crossposted at The Square Deal
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17 Responses to “Obama: The Great Moderate-Conservative Hope?”
Some Things Never Change.
“Andrew Sullivan:
“12 Oct 2008 01:49 pm
Now They Tell Us
“The Right can only be depressed as they watch Obama buoyed by a world credit crisis and the deep unpopularity of a president who campaigned but never governed like a conservative,” – David Freddoso, New York Post.”
Hey, I'm voting for Sen. Obama, who's a liberal, hoping he'll govern like a libertarian Democrat.
For the longest time, this entire election was about Obama, all the time. Obama campaign talked about Obama, McCain campaign talked about Obama, the media talked about Obama. This whole election was not McCain vs. Obama — instead, it was purely a referendum on Obama.
…Until a couple of week ago, there was a shift. Now, the entire election is about McCain. Obama and his policies are no longer the primary focus of the election and election coverage – instead, this has very suddenly turned into a referendum on McCain.
I get the sense that in the past few weeks, that the “Obama referendum” was answered, and Obama passed the test. Now we move on to McCain, to see if he can 'pass' as well. And so far, he's running out of time to answer that question.
And if McCain were to win and deliver a President Palin a couple of years from now? I think that one shows how truly awful McCain's judgment can be.
Obama does represent my values moreso than McCain, and as Jim just mentioned, the Palin choice was very revealing – not in a good way. Lastly, Obama had nothing to do with the George Wallace comment, let's not make any mistake about that.
What the moderate and “conservatives” are really saying is that they have finally realized that conservative politics in the U.S. is dead. There are not enough people left in the U.S. interested in small government, lower taxes, and fewer government programs.
With the election of Obama and large majorities in Congress, the next political fight will be about getting the most out of government while putting the least end. I think of it as big government libertarianism. People want government programs to provide jobs, checks, and money but do not want the government bothering them. Think of blacks in urban Chicago. They love goverrment jobs, government pork, and welfare but they pay no attention to any government regulation that is inconvient. That is what the U.S. has to look forward to.
Maybe I just don't recall, but I really don't remember angry mob crowds during the Willie Horton crap. A big difference between sleazy racist ads and crowds that are shouting racist remarks and providing perfect hate-crime style soundbites. The Willie Horton ads did provide those soundbites, but I really don't remember crowds of people shouting out hate-filled remarks (leaving aside the candidates egging them on *in person*). If I'm wrong, fine. The fear and anger already in place due to economic panic is bad enough without providing a racist-tinged focus for these fears on a presidential candidate. Any American who worries about our history of political assassinations should be legitimately concerned when huge crowds start chanting hateful rhetoric. Disembodied ads might be nauseating and effective, but allowing fearful and angry human beings to work themselves into a mob mentality is a very different thing. As an American, I find it appalling that so many GOP blogs and pundits are not immediately condemning whipping up already fearful crowds into emotional judgments based on political tactics that are so patently false. I used to thing that most people don't actually believe things like Obama is a terrorist or that McCain is an empty suit controlled solely by personal ambition. Clearly, a large segment of the population do NOT filter political rhetoric and just absorb talkingpoints as facts. Republicans seem to have latched on to this demographic and have successfully won elections using this lack of analytical smarts. Because some people DO believe talkingpoints is why angry mobs are scary. Presumably at least the majority of these crowds are just partisans venting. It's the small percentage of nutjobs and innocents that I worry about.
used to think… didn't proof carefully as the whole thing is making me really angry and anxious about Sen. Obama's safety.
I don't see any specific policies in this post (or link) about why McCain is superior to Obama.
As far as the dirtiness of the campaign ads:
You may think that the dirty ads attacking Obama are part and parcel of political campaigns (and dirty ads exist in many campaigns). But what McCain has done, all but accuse Obama of being a traitor, stoking terrorist fears, raising racist (and anti-Christian) sentiment to the point where McCain's supporters actually call for Obama's death in such a public way and in such numbers across the country is beyond pale. Good for McCain to try to reign them in even though he only did so when he saw that it was hurting his poll numbers.
Bush divided the country and used fear to be elected and re-elected (and the first time Bush wasn't even elected by the people, but by the electoral college). McCain is doing the same.
If McCain's ideas were really as strong and received strong support from the public, then McCain would not need to resort to these tactics.
The only lower McCain could go would be to say outright that Obama is a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer. Oh, and McCain could also call Obama the “n” word.
Do we really want a president who is willing to stoop this low to be our leader? Someone that not only Americans look up to (and when I was a kid the president was an honorable position and to be admired) but much of the world, too?
crosspit: “used to think… didn't proof carefully as the whole thing is making me really angry and anxious about Sen. Obama's safety.”
Don't worry, Obama (and McCain) has a top-notch team of professionals guarding him. The president probably has more protection than anyone else in the world, and when McCain took a walk in that Baghdad market a couple years ago to proclaim everything rosy and Iraqis could go about their business because we were winning the war, McCain was for a few hours even more heavily guarded than the president. After all there was a massive ground and air force (complete with circling helicopters) protecting him in that market. Our Secret Service (and military) knows how to guard people. So no need to worry much about Obama.
I live in a VERY Republican town (83% for Bush in 2004) and the people in this town are abandoning McCain in droves. As an Obama supporter I naturally ask what has caused this. It is NOT the negative campaign McCain/Palin are waging. As Dennis points out what we have seen is fairly normal. No what bothers people in this town seems to be a significant distrust of McCain. Partly this is due to the Palin pick but mostly it is due to the changes they see in McCain, especially since 2000.
They worry about what aging has done to the man's mental faculties and personality.His anger seems to have destablized his judgement. They worry he is still fighting to overcome the stigma of losing the Vietnam war and what that may lead to militarily to vinidicate the great cause of McCain's life. At 72 they worry about his health, specifically will his anger cause a stroke or heart attack(more worrisome than his cancer) and leave Palin in charge which is worse than a rudderless adminstration.
In short they really worry that McCain is approaching Altzheimers as indicated by his zig zag thought process, paranoia and anger. They think McCain realizes he's losing it, but is determined to achieve the great pinnacle of his life regardless of the implications.
jdledell,
They probably also do not trust McCain when he says he wants to control the border, that he will limit spending, that he will cut taxes, or that he will appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court. Most of those Republicans consdier McCain a RINO and thus not worthy of a vote. Being a maverick in DC means you are willing to stab people in the back and most Repubicans realize that McCAin will stab them in the back given any reason.
An excellent piece on Obama's political beginnings from the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…
I think jdledell is on to something here. This isn't about policy prescriptions, which conservatives favor McCain over Obama. No, it's about temperament. McCain looks like he's lost his marbles.
Dennis,
I've been amazed for quite some time but not surprised. I didn't want you think you're alone out there (there are a few of us left).
SD- Very flattering picture, LOL. Been breaking into a few banks lately???:)
I agree with the others about what the Palin pick tells us about McCain. It tells us that he would do anything to win– even setting up someone for the presidency who could potentially make George W. Bush look like a great success in comparison! Why did he pick someone that he'd only met once??Because the Obama camp was on a post-Convention high, and the Democratic Party had healed many of their wounds. He had to do something to stop the momentum. I think he panicked.
He had to know that she was woefully inadequate- but was a master campaigner- which is a scary combination and that many of her views ran contrary to his.
There's no way he's been putting Country First- either with that pick or with the divisive, partisan way he's been campaigning.
I also wonder why Mr. Sanders didn't mention the Palin pick. This woman seems to be just what the power elite (i.e. Rove/Cheney neocons) in the Republican party are looking for–a female George W. type that they can manipulate perhaps even more successfully than they have manipulated W. Perhaps McCain even has no idea what he may have unleashed on the world. The thoughts of a Palin presidency is terrifying!
This race *should* be a referendum on Obama.
I believe there are *many* moderate voters out there that currently support Obama basically because he’s good-looking, he’s well-spoken, and he has no ties to George Bush.
I think the race may tighten as more of these moderate voters become aware of the details Obama's background and record.
Please see “17 things you should know before voting for Barack Obama”
here.