Obama Adroitly Moves to the Right: Postions As November Winner
Obama’s shuffle to the right suggests this man is ruthless enough to win
His U-turns may trouble progressive Democrats, but they are the mark of a man who is determined not to be another principled loser like Kerry
Jonathon Freedland, Guardian.Co.UK. July 2, 2008
Call it the Potomac shuffle, the traditional election-year dance in which a candidate who has earlier moved left or right to win over the party faithful in a primary campaign promptly slides back to the centre to appeal to the rest of the country. Barack Obama, quite a mover on the dancefloor, has spent the month since he beat Hillary Clinton to the Democratic nomination giving a demonstration of this time-honoured piece of Washington choreography - and at an unusually high tempo, too.
Just yesterday he announced, in a speech on religion aimed at wooing evangelicals - who Democrats believe are no longer a guaranteed bloc for the Republicans - that he would continue George Bush’s support for “faith-based initiatives”, channelling public money to religious groups to perform social services, whether drug rehab or care for the poor. (Side note: watch for David Cameron, who also favours this approach, to claim he is Obama’s spiritual brother.)
A day earlier Obama had delivered an equally long address on the virtues of patriotism. On his lapel was the flag pin he has worn since mid-May, the same pin he once disdained as an unnecessary, shallow display of love of country. More substantively, Obama has tacked towards the centre on a string of issues where a matter of months ago he was to be found much further left.
He once opposed legislation needed for Bush’s much-reviled programme of domestic surveillance; now he supports a new law that would grant immunity to phone companies that help the government eavesdrop on US citizens. He was an advocate of gun control, but only hemmed and hawed when the supreme court struck down the District of Columbia’s ban on hand guns last week. He now says he will consider joining his Republican opponent John McCain in calling for a cut in the corporate tax rate. Suffice to say, these were not positions Obama took when he was trying to win Democratic votes in New Hampshire or Iowa. Click here to read more at the Manchester Guardian online.