Stuart Rothenberg, who knows rather a lot about how politics works and has been observing it for years, points out the irreconcilable differences that Barack Obama has – with himself. They really are irreconcilable, too.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) continues to promise change and stress his ability to unite Americans. It’s a feel-good campaign built on soaring rhetoric and good intentions.
Pardon me if all of the fawning from the national media, and the endorsements from Caroline Kennedy and Garrison Keillor, leave me less than convinced that he can bridge the deep divide that separates Americans.
Withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq won’t bring Americans together. Nor will raising taxes on the affluent or enhancing the power of organized labor to recruit more members. Even a stem-cell research bill won’t bring Americans together, though a clear majority surely supports it.
In politics, the devil is always in the details, and except in rare cases, Obama has either avoided them or, more importantly, failed to note the obvious contradictions in his message and his record….
….If Obama satisfies Kennedy and the Democratic Party’s most liberal constituencies, it’s unlikely that he is going to bring the country together. And if Obama does truly take steps to find a middle ground between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, he certainly will disappoint his party’s base.
The reality is that half of the country leans Democratic and half leans Republican. Yes, there are some issues on which many Americans agree, but if Obama limits himself to those, he’ll have a thin agenda.
Instead, Obama is likely to strike out in a different direction from Bush. And if he thinks his communication skills alone will bring along the whole country (as he seems to), he is deluding himself. America is divided because Americans have very different views.
Obama was rated the most liberal Member of the U.S. Senate in 2007, up from the 10th most liberal Member in 2006 and the 16th most liberal in 2005. That suggests that he will follow a rather predictably liberal agenda if he is elected president later this year.
Obama is trying very hard to straddle the fence and avoid answering any substantive questions on how all his lofty rhetoric will actually bring about change. Rothenberg points out that, at the moment, Obama's rhetoric is empty of any real content.
Politicians are notorious for trying to have it both ways, of course. Obama is very successful at pulling this off right now against a primary rival who essentially has no real policy differences with him. In the general election, that will be much harder to get away with. Right now Obama is enjoying a little bit of a holiday from real scrutiny. At some point he will have to explain how he will bridge the differences he has with himself.
