Senator Barack Obama presumably has won the Democratic Presidential Primary; that is, if the Super Delegates are more committed to their positions of voting for him than Obama has been committed to his position on a variety of issues. One thing is becoming incredibly clear about Obama; you can depend on change—especially his position on issues.
“Flip-flop” has become part of American lexicon as much as ____gate, to describe when a politician changes positions on an issue. And most politicians will change positions on an issue from time to time—but instead of being glad a candidate changed his or her position to meet their own, opponents deride the change trying to create a wedge between a candidate and his or her supporters. Opponents look at every issue trying to find one or two that will enable the “Flip-Flop” tag; McCain on off-shore drilling, or Hillary on NAFTA, or Kerry on voting against the war in Iraq.
For Obama, it appears that rather than a pair of flip-flops on one or two issues in his closet, he has a beachfront store’s worth of issues on which he has drastically changed course. Here are just a few of the changes Obama has made on various issues in the past few months:
Accepting public campaign financing
Immediate withdrawal of our troops from
Unconditionally meeting with Ahmaninejad of Iran and other rogue leaders
Gun control
Flag pins
NAFTA
Middle American values some “cling to”
His church
His grandmother
FISA
Naturally, these position changes are being labeled in the media as “nuanced,” and “carefully calibrated to win votes” and “pragmatic.” The national media got behind Obama when they found a way to run away from Hillary. Now that they have their candidate, they are not about to sully his reputation or stance on issues; no matter how much they supported his previous position on issues to which he has now changed course.
As Obama gets further from the primaries and closer to the general election he is veering more and more to the right to attempt to get somewhere near the center before November. When
His campaign has been about big orations to thousands where the emotion is high, but the substance is lacking. One of our LBPosters, Ryan Alsop, several weeks ago on his “Friday Five” had a post called “Running For President Is All About Speechmaking,”. Unfortunately, too many voters agree, they care more about how well he speaks and delivers a prepared speech than what his position is on the issues that will affect their lives. Obama knows this; he is a very smart and savvy politician—say nothing to cheers and try to capture the center because that is where Americans vote for President.
What are Obama’s true positions? He has no voting record to speak of, so we cannot tell what issues he has supported or opposed. He has not introduced major legislation while in the Senate. Despite chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on European Affairs, he has never convened a single meeting. While in the Illinois Senate he was present but did not vote over 100 times.
Obama’s campaign has been about unity, about change, about not politics as usual in
Unity, change, not politics as usual… So far his campaign has not been uniting, the only change has been his position on issues and it appears he is like most of his colleagues in our nation’s Capitol; say what you need to say to whom you need to say when it needs to be said to get elected.
Gee, somehow I thought he would be different….
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