Can Progressives Love Obama?

By David Moberg, In These Times. Posted September 10, 2008.

After Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) secured his party's nomination in June, his tightly knit campaign message began to fray at the edges. Critics from across the political spectrum charge that Obama has shifted to the center or right on a host of issues, and that the flip-flopping was -- take your pick -- good, bad, inevitable or duplicitous.

Progressives, whose hopes for Obama grew from his early opposition to the war in Iraq, and the youthful movement his candidacy inspired, wondered how much they could trust him on Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, civil liberties, gun control, the death penalty, trade, government funding of faith-based groups and other issues.

Disappointed as some progressives may be, Obama has not made a dramatic shift to the center: He's always been more centrist, cautious and compromising than many of his supporters -- and critics -- have wanted to admit.

"I don't think he's changed positions," says Robert Borosage, co-director of the progressive advocacy group, Campaign for America's Future. "He's always been a cautious liberal."

The Wall Street Journal took the supposed changes as Obama's admission that the conservative positions on most issues were correct, and concluded that Obama, as much as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), would represent a third term for Bush.

Right-wing anti-Obama groups warned their followers that a devious Obama was trying to woo evangelicals from the conservative fold. McCain's backers used the controversies to tarnish Obama's character and disillusion his supporters.

Meanwhile, centrists rejoice that the middle -- wherever that shifting spot may be -- is always best. And a few on the left find evidence, once again, that no Democrat can be trusted.

Even if Obama is more consistent than critics allege, questions still haunt progressives. Does an Obama presidency promise dramatic and progressive change, as his rhetoric sometimes suggests? Or will Obama simply shift from Bush's neoconservatism back to the confused -- if slightly less conservative -- perspective of the Democratic Party establishment?

And what president would Obama most resemble? A Lincolnesque figure who would bring national unity (without a civil war), as Obama often implies?

A Clinton, who campaigned to "put people first" -- as he had put it -- but failed to take bold steps and ended up triangulating political differences?

A Kennedy, who inspired millions but got dragged down by conventional assumptions about American power in the world, as evidenced by the Vietnam War and Bay of Pigs?

Or, as many on the left fantasize, an FDR running a conservative campaign but responding to the times with dramatic reforms?

On the record

The character of an Obama presidency will depend not just on Obama but also on worsening world conditions that demand a new direction -- economic collapse and financial instability, environmental and energy crises, failure of a military approach to terrorism, worsening inequality and insecurity for most Americans.

It also will depend on opportunities, such as the size of a Democratic congressional majority, and pressures, including demands from popular movements at home for an end to the war, single-payer national health insurance and worker rights, as well as high expectations from nations and leaders around the world.

What Obama says as a candidate does affect his chances of winning. It can also skew the direction of his potential presidency and demonstrate his will -- and ability -- to be a forceful leader.

In most of the controversies, Obama has maintained previous positions that often departed from progressive orthodoxy.

On other points, however, he has shifted in disappointing ways.

Obama broke his promise to vote against and filibuster the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) re-authorization. The measure included immunity from prosecution for the telecommunications companies that aided the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping of citizens.

"There is no reason why telephone companies should be given blanket immunity to cover violations of the rights of the American people," Obama had said in February. "We must reaffirm that no one in this country is above the law."

But in June, Obama told reporters that the FISA compromise was an improvement since it would put an "inspector general in place to investigate what happened previously." He continued: "Given ... all the information I received ... the underlying program itself actually is important and useful to American security as long as it has these constraints on them."

Though Obama didn't change his views on the merits of the legislation, his vote for the bill -- which passed easily, thanks to many Democrats' defections -- angered civil libertarians and the left blogosphere.

See more stories tagged with: obama, centrism, progressives

David Moberg is a senior editor of In These Times.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »