SUMMARY
Obama has outsmarted the Republicans by moving to the center and planting himself there, frustrating their attempts to portray him as a dangerous Marxist of some kind. He voted with Bush much of the time while in the Senate. Upon inauguration he chose many moderate and conservative advisers, winning praise from the right and complaints from the left. And once he began digging into the actual policy, he maddened hardcore liberals by slow-rolling many of their pet projects such as the public option and climate change and Guantanamo and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the DREAM Act, even at the risk of impelling some of his 2008 supporters to stay home in 2012. But a leftist he isn't, and happily, the independents who pick all the presidents know that. Meanwhile the GOP has abandoned all pretense of fighting for the center.
DETAILS
As we recall from 2008, the Republicans ran a wave of lie-and-smear ads against Obama, and sent fake hecklers like “Joe the Plumber” after him; the media let them get away with it because they love a good fight. The Democrats mostly behaved themselves: compare how the Democrats, if not the press, ignored most of Palin’s crimes and follies in Alaska, and her decidedly odd family, and her decision to undertake incredibly dangerous cross-country journey after her water broke… with this:
Obama has outsmarted the Republicans by moving to the center and planting himself there, frustrating their attempts to portray him as a dangerous Marxist of some kind. He voted with Bush much of the time while in the Senate. Upon inauguration he chose many moderate and conservative advisers, winning praise from the right and complaints from the left. And once he began digging into the actual policy, he maddened hardcore liberals by slow-rolling many of their pet projects such as the public option and climate change and Guantanamo and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the DREAM Act, even at the risk of impelling some of his 2008 supporters to stay home in 2012. But a leftist he isn't, and happily, the independents who pick all the presidents know that. Meanwhile the GOP has abandoned all pretense of fighting for the center.
DETAILS
As we recall from 2008, the Republicans ran a wave of lie-and-smear ads against Obama, and sent fake hecklers like “Joe the Plumber” after him; the media let them get away with it because they love a good fight. The Democrats mostly behaved themselves: compare how the Democrats, if not the press, ignored most of Palin’s crimes and follies in Alaska, and her decidedly odd family, and her decision to undertake incredibly dangerous cross-country journey after her water broke… with this:
“Barack Obama as an evil Muslim socialist dictator who had to fake his birth certificate like Adolf Hitler to be eligible for the top job! He underperformed in the election, even with the liberal media giving him a free pass! He is going to ration health care so children and old people die, remove his enemies from the radio airwaves, build an all-liberal media, make millions peddling a global-warming hoax, cripple small businesses, build a bullet train to Vegas and Hollywood, slash defense, make his temporary unemployment policies permanent, establish martial law, put terrorists on the streets, put Capone-like Chicago criminals in charge of the government, take everyone’s guns, force women to have abortions, rig the census with ACORN, and send gays in to destroy our army, invalidate all straight marriages and make all our wives whores and our children bastards! One of his scary black men cut a female McCain campaign worker with a knife! He’s in bed with those Democrats who caused the economic crash and prevented the lifeboats from saving Katrina victims! His bank buyout is really a giveaway! Anti-Obama tea parties are sprouting up across this center-right nation and on the internet because the American people and big business hate Obama! The American people will rise up in revolution! Let’s get our guns!”
But the American people have seen Obama in action for three years, and he didn’t do what they warned he would do. So who will believe the next pack of lies they brew up?
Obama helped inoculate himself against many attacks by moving to the center. As we know, all presidential elections are decided by independents, moderates, centrists. So Obama has been staking out the center of the battlefield since his Senate days. He voted with Bush half the time and had conservative views on taxes, FISA, the Patriot Act, ramping up in Afghanistan and hunting bin Laden, free-market economics, merit pay to root out bad teachers, nuclear power, faith-based programs and evangelical outreach, cutting government waste, Israel, Iran, guns, and the death penalty.
Upon inauguration, Obama picked financial advisers who were so conservative that unions complained. He picked a foreign policy team which liberals criticized as unduly hawkish. Conservatives loved his presidential transition: Kissinger, Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Fred Barnes, Lindsey Graham, Ed Rollins, Condoleeza Rice, McCain, Lamar Alexander, McConnell. James Baker called it a center-right effort. Wall Street liked the Geithner pick, and Summers and Orszag got right-wing raves too. 93 percent of Republicans believed Emanuel would be effective. Alex Castellanos, a GOP commentator, admitted that Obama has been acting and campaigning from the center. After one poll on Obama’s choices, the New Republic noted "the quotes from GOP respondents are more adulatory than the responses from the Democrats." RNC Chairman Mike Duncan quipped that Obama “ran the most successful moderate Republican presidential campaign since Dwight Eisenhower.”
Obama justified the confidence of the few sane conservatives by saving the financial sector and the automotive sector, nailing the Somali pirates and bin Laden, ripping apart the Russian spy ring, and moving deliberately on the liberals’ pet issues. Liberals were angry that Obama didn’t blow Lieberman out of his committee chair. They say he’s too far to the right on green issues, on immigration, on gays, on wiretaps; they were infuriated that Obama chose an evangelical minister who backed the California ban on gay marriages, to perform the invocation at his inaugural.
Obama justified the confidence of the few sane conservatives by saving the financial sector and the automotive sector, nailing the Somali pirates and bin Laden, ripping apart the Russian spy ring, and moving deliberately on the liberals’ pet issues. Liberals were angry that Obama didn’t blow Lieberman out of his committee chair. They say he’s too far to the right on green issues, on immigration, on gays, on wiretaps; they were infuriated that Obama chose an evangelical minister who backed the California ban on gay marriages, to perform the invocation at his inaugural.
So the Kenyan Muslim Marxist line of attack isn’t going to work this time.
Neatly, Obama is more conservative than the founder of modern conservatism, Nixon. Nixon took the conservative mantle from the discredited McCarthy and Goldwater, crafted the southern strategy by way of exploiting the fears of whites, and spent two decades warning that the Democrats couldn’t be trusted on national security, or anything else. Nixon, rather than Reagan, would have confirmed his place in history as the founder of the New Right if he hadn’t flamed out in Watergate. Reagan simply built on Nixon’s work. So all the wingnuts who are screeching that Obama is practically a Marxist, need to remember that Obama is actually to the right of the founder of the conservative movement, Richard Nixon.
Do they think Obama is all about Big Gummint? Nixon proposed Medicare for all, which is much more liberal than the Obama plan. Nixon increased Social Security, Medicare, food aid and public assistance. He set up the EPA, OSHA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Council on Environmental Quality, allowing Big Gummint to get uppity with corporations on unsafe air, water and consumer products. He imposed wage and price controls. He presented a pretty big budget and proclaimed “Now I am a Keynesian”.
Do they think Obama isn’t as gutsy as Bush on foreign policy? Nixon gave away Vietnam to the Communists, made peace agreements with our most dangerous allies in Russia and China, and ended the draft.
Do they think Obama is a social liberal? Nixon supported the pro-choice movement and the ERA for women; he played a huge role in desegregating schools, signed Title IX, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, and the Comprehensive Child Development Act. And…he launched the first federal affirmative action plan. Skeery brown folks are taking our jobs! That was Nixon who launched that.
So….First, Obama is actually to the right of Nixon, so all the teabag protests that Obama is to the left of Mao are just plain absurd. Second, Nixon would never survive in today’s Republican party. The racist wing of the GOP, which he helped create 40 years ago, would destroy him if he ran today. Today’s GOP is so hate-filled that even one of their most famous hate-mongers, Nixon, would no longer be welcome.
Do they think Obama is all about Big Gummint? Nixon proposed Medicare for all, which is much more liberal than the Obama plan. Nixon increased Social Security, Medicare, food aid and public assistance. He set up the EPA, OSHA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Council on Environmental Quality, allowing Big Gummint to get uppity with corporations on unsafe air, water and consumer products. He imposed wage and price controls. He presented a pretty big budget and proclaimed “Now I am a Keynesian”.
Do they think Obama isn’t as gutsy as Bush on foreign policy? Nixon gave away Vietnam to the Communists, made peace agreements with our most dangerous allies in Russia and China, and ended the draft.
Do they think Obama is a social liberal? Nixon supported the pro-choice movement and the ERA for women; he played a huge role in desegregating schools, signed Title IX, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, and the Comprehensive Child Development Act. And…he launched the first federal affirmative action plan. Skeery brown folks are taking our jobs! That was Nixon who launched that.
So….First, Obama is actually to the right of Nixon, so all the teabag protests that Obama is to the left of Mao are just plain absurd. Second, Nixon would never survive in today’s Republican party. The racist wing of the GOP, which he helped create 40 years ago, would destroy him if he ran today. Today’s GOP is so hate-filled that even one of their most famous hate-mongers, Nixon, would no longer be welcome.
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