The Reality of Obama

People always said about Bill Clinton that there was Bill Clinton, the campaigner, and Bill Clinton, the governor, and I mean that as someone who governs, even as the President. Bill Clinton, the campaigner, was always more successful than Bill Clinton, the governor, although he did eventually get quite a few things done.

Were it not for the OPEC crisis and Iran and Carter's lack of insider savvy in Washington, Jimmy Carter may have been one of the best presidents. He looked at alternative energy sources, helped nations that warred to achieve peace.

Obama comes in on a wave of hope, and some have already contended that there's no way that he can accomplish everything he says he will do (although some have also criticized that he hasn't actually promised too many specifics either). To be fair, compare that to "W". What things has he promised and delivered? Both he and his father governed war, so that it became the issue, and not the US.

I'll agree that we don't know how liberal Obama is. The fact of the matter is that he's not so charismatic that whatever he says, people do. This means he has to deal with the reality that the last 8 years, and really the last 20 years, have seen a move to the right, anchored by religious conservatives. Even the fiscal conservatives have to be concerned, although they tend to get away with it because they bankroll campaigns, and polticians aren't always so pure in their motivations.

Because of this, Obama will have to pick his battles carefully. When Clinton first came to office, the first two big issues he tackled were gays in the military and health care reform. Both went badly because there was huge resistance to them. The military was too conservative to listen to Clinton, and the medical lobby also didn't want reform of health care. This cost Clinton political capital (although, to be fair, he did win re-election rather handily).

It helps that Obama has a Democratic majority, but don't expect that Republicans won't try to fight this, as they have in the past. We'll see how committed McCain is to his promise of trying to assist Obama, as he is still a senator and seemingly more moderate than most Republicans (I feel all these years of Bush support was out of ambition to be President).

I think Obama will look to some safer topics like infrastructure reform as well as trying to phase out US involvement in Iraq. We like to flag-wave and claim the US only goes to war for noble purposes, but these wars aren't free, even as we borrow money to finance them. It will be hard for the economy to recover if the government keeps paying for an expensive war.

I'm surprised how many conservatives pronounced gloom and doom based on zero economic knowledge. They simply assert statements with no reason at all. This was the same kind of assertion of socialism, terrorism, Christian extremism. In other words, McCain's campaign was simply throwing as many names as Obama to see what would stick, primarily because McCain knew his ideas didn't resonate enough (he resorted to the same old, lower taxes argument that Republicans always trot out).

To combat this, I think Obama will look to using grassroots organization to move some of his "agenda" forward. This will be completely separate from the usual Congress stuff like the war or infrastructure reform.

Anyway, he's got a few months to set up a staff, and so it won't be for a few months into the new administration before we see what happens (the first big thing is who gets picked as his replacement as senator of Illinois).