I had dinner with some relatives last month, and as often happens the conversation turned to politics. We addressed some of the talking points of the election - "Obama doesn't support Israel!" and "It was supposed to be Hillary's turn!" were two favorites - but after the ridiculous portion of the evening, the discussion turned to something a little more substantial. Namely, is Obama too liberal?
Armed with the courage of three glasses of wine (this was Rebecca's family, after all, so I generally try not to be too bellicose), I attempted to make the point that he's not too liberal, that he is, in fact, a moderate pragmatist. I say "attempted" because truth be told, I didn't acquit myself particularly well. I was unprepared to frame the debate in any meaningful fashion and ended up spouting talking points like some kind of mindless automaton.
It was not my finest moment.
So let me attempt to make amends here. Let's take a look at the issues where Obama is chided as being "too liberal" and remove the cloak of right-wing spin to reveal what the man actually is: A pragmatic moderate.
- The War in Iraq. Obama is generally criticized on two fronts here. First is his opposition to the Surge, which is roundly hailed as a smashing success. Except it's not. The Surge has splintered Iraq into three (Sunni, Shi'a, Kurdish) ethno-religious geographic states and indirectly given Iran and Turkey greater power over a still-deteriorating situation. It's also, as the article linked shows, made things increasingly deadly for Iraq's religious minorities. Relying on the surge to fix Iraq was like using a band-aid to treat gangrene, a metaphorical analysis Obama hasn't yet made but is welcome to, free of charge.
- The War in Iraq part 2. Obama has favored a phased withdrawl from Iraq for years, which McCain has chided as "waving the white flag of surrender." This in spite of the fact that both the Iraqi regime and the Bush Administration have now agreed to that same phased withdrawl. And the Brits are about to bugger off permanently. In light of the fact that four of the five parties now mentioned share the same view, with McCain's being the only outlier, isn't it more likely that Obama is not in fact liberal on this position but is, instead, moderate and correct?
- Taxes. Very simply, McCain's plan is a radical redistribution of wealth upwards. Obama would raise raise taxes on the rich while cutting taxes on the middle and working class. To put the first part of the previous statement in context: Obama would raise the capital gains tax to the rate it was at under Reagan. Reagan! Was Reagan too liberal as well? Or perhaps have we discovered the truth that Obama is a unique politician beholden only to the ideology of "finding shit that works."
- Health Care. Obama is often derided for his "socialist, universal health care" plan. Except that it's neither socialist - the market still has a say - nor universal. It was Hillary Clinton whose plan called for universal health care up front, while Obama instead took the moderate approach of calling for mandates only for children. As for comparing Obama's plan to McCain's, the following paragraph pretty neatly sums it up:
Obama follows the Democratic health care template by building on existing private and public programs such as employer health insurance, private individual health insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid. This is unlike the Republican approach that would refashion the private market by providing incentives to encourage a reinvigorated individual health insurance platform focused on personal choice and responsibility (see McCain post).
So here you have Obama, willing to draw water from every well available to create a public/private partnership in order to solve a problem. McCain on the other hand has an extremist, fundamentalist view and plans to let the market sort it out - just as it sorted out the mortgage and investment banking industries. Only one of these plans looks moderate to me. - And finally, let's look at this great WaPo story from January. Charles Peters examines what he called Obama's "heart and soul" bill, an effort from Obama's time in the Illinois state senate in which the senator proposed a bill requiring that all interrogations and confessions of murder suspects be videotaped. I'll let Mr. Peters tell the story:
This seemed likely to stop the beatings, but the bill itself aroused immediate opposition. There were Republicans who were automatically tough on crime and Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.
Obama had his work cut out for him.
He responded with an all-out campaign of cajolery. It had not been easy for a Harvard man to become a regular guy to his colleagues. Obama had managed to do so by playing basketball and poker with them and, most of all, by listening to their concerns. Even Republicans came to respect him. One Republican state senator, Kirk Dillard, has said that "Barack had a way both intellectually and in demeanor that defused skeptics."
The police proved to be Obama's toughest opponent. Legislators tend to quail when cops say things like, "This means we won't be able to protect your children." The police tried to limit the videotaping to confessions, but Obama, knowing that the beatings were most likely to occur during questioning, fought -- successfully -- to keep interrogations included in the required videotaping.
By showing officers that he shared many of their concerns, even going so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted, he was able to quiet the fears of many.
Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.
35 to 0 is not "too liberal." It's not even "liberal." 35 to 0 is good government and an obvious gift for finding and creating common ground. That is the very definition of moderate, and that, more than anything, is why I will happily be voting for Obama this November 4. You should, too.
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