On Sunday Fred Barnes posted an analysis on the Weekly Standard website arguing that Barack Obama’s tack to the center is “quite clever.” One of the three reasons Fred put forward to substantiate his case is that Obama is “better off being attacked by John McCain as a flip-flopper than as an unrepentant liberal.”
I agree with Barnes, and simply want to underscore an important point we ought to take from it: Obama’s dizzying shifts on a range of issues — including Iraq, meeting with Iran’s Ahamdinejad, terrorist surveillance programs, free trade, abortion, guns, public financing, and the America flag lapel pin, among others — reminds us that America remains a center-right, basically conservative leaning nation.
Senator Obama has clearly made the decision that he must avoid the charge of liberalism at all costs — including if, in trying to avoid that appellation, Obama eviscerates the core early appeal of his candidacy: that he is a “new” politician whose actions would be the antithesis of triangulation and would be driven, in Obama’s words, “not by polls, but by principle; not by calculation, but by conviction.”
In fact, as the campaign has unfolded, we are finding that Obama is the embodiment of a calculating, poll-driven politician, perhaps rivaling even Bill Clinton (who once seemed in a category all his own) in that respect. Paul Greenberg labeled Bill Clinton “Slick Willie;” David Brooks has anointed Barack Obama “Fast Eddie.”
Barack Obama strikes me as instinctively quite liberal, and his voting record is indisputably so. But his all-consuming concern appears to be not with any issue, set of issues, or political philosophy; rather, Obama seems devoted to himself in a way and to a degree that seems rare even for a profession filled with exceedingly ambitious, hyper-confident, and self-absorbed individuals.
Is Obama embracing an effective political strategy? I think so. Given the options — unrepentant liberal v. unprincipled flip-flopper — Obama is choosing the least problematic one. It of course helps that Obama’s supporters in the media (which is another way of saying the vast majority of those in the media) are portraying his shifting positions as an example of political shrewdness and admirable political toughness instead of a lack of public character and trustworthiness.
Will Obama be hurt by the course he has adopted? Probably, though it seems highly unlikely to me that it will be enough, on its own, to derail his candidacy. But whether it does or not, we are being reminded by Obama himself, almost on a daily basis, that liberalism is a lethal political charge. Whatever group of supporters find liberalism to be appealing, a far larger group considers it to be virtually disqualifying. The fact that Obama understands this and is doing everything he can do inoculate himself against the charge of liberalism ought to be welcomed news to conservatives.
Conservatism, for whatever challenges it faces, remains the most compelling and attractive political philosophy in America.
