One of the more persistent knocks against Barack Obama has less to do with his specific policy proposals, which are pretty clearly progressive, and more to do with his “post-partisan” style. By emphasizing “bringing people together,” Obama, according to his Democratic critics, too often sounds like he’s using “conservative frames,” “right-wing talking points,” and sending “dog-whistle” signals to the right.
Of course, nearly all of this is in the eye of the beholder. For Obama fans, he’s appealing to independents and fed-up Republicans to expand the party and build a broader Democratic coalition. For Obama opponents, the exact same appeals are part of some kind of “triangulation” strategy. Worse, his critics say, Dems are just supposed to take Obama on “faith” — he seems like he’s using a moderate tone to advance a liberal agenda, but what if he’s actually moderate?
Kevin touched on this yesterday:
[I]n the end, this is what it all comes down to. Is Obama kidding or not? Does he really believe that he can enact a progressive agenda by reaching out to Republicans and bridging the red-blue divide, or is he just saying this as a way of shaping public opinion and winning an election? And if he does believe it, is he right?
As a lot of us point out endlessly, both Obama and Hillary Clinton have very similar views on both domestic and foreign policy. Not identical, but pretty close. So really, the key question for progressives ought to be this: Which political style is most likely to advance the cause of progressivism? The soothing, post-partisan Obama style, or the more directly political Clinton style?
It’s a multi-faceted question, and I hesitate to over-simplify matters, but I think Kevin’s description is quite right. What’s more, given some of Obama’s comments in the debate last night, I think the senator’s sensitive to the question.
Consider some of these remarks from the event in South Carolina:
“I want to be clear. What I said had nothing to do with [Republican] policies. I spent a lifetime fighting a lifetime against Ronald Reagan’s policies. But what I did say is that we have to be thinking in the same transformative way about our Democratic agenda. We’ve got to appeal to Independents and Republicans in order to build a working majority to move an agenda forward. That is what I said. […]
“[W]hen you talked about taking on the Republicans, how important it is I think to redraw the political map in this country. And the reason I say that is that we have gone through the 2000 election, the 2004 election, both of which were disappointing elections. But the truth is that we as Democrats have not had a working majority in a very long time. And what I mean by that is a working majority that could push through the kinds of bold initiatives that all of us have proposed. And one of the reasons that I am running for president is because I believe that I can inspire new people to get involved in the process, that I can reach out to independents and, yes, some Republicans who have also lost trust in their government and want to see something new. When you look at Bush and Cheney and their record, the one good thing they’ve done for us is they have given their party a very bad name. That gives us a unique opportunity in this election, and what we can’t do, I think, is just to take the playing field as a given. We want to expand the scope of the electorate so that we can start getting a 60 percent majority, more folks in the House, more folks in the Senate, and I think that’s something I can do.
“And that’s why we’ve seen record turnout in every election so far. I’m not taking all the credit for it. I think people are voting against George Bush. But I also think that we’ve inspired people who had not previously voted before, and that’s what the Democratic Party has to do.”
Now, one can certainly argue that Obama’s strategy is flawed. For that matter, one can say the strategy is sound, but Obama is the wrong candidate to execute it.
But I think it’s increasingly clear what Obama is actually trying to do — put a moderate face on a liberal platform, in the hopes of expanding the Democratic pie. Maybe that can work, maybe not, but I think the suggestions that he’s some kind of triangulating, Gingrich-loving closet-Reaganite are misguided.