Does the Barack Obama victory signal that the United States has veered from a center-right political posture to center-left? Mind you, I am referring to the population at large here, not the press, media, academia, or the intelligentsia - whatever intelligentsia means. The answer is "no". The electorate has not shifted. To be sure, President-elect Obama is certainly on the far left lane of the liberal highway. The American voters are not on that toll road.
A look at economic and foreign policy campaign pronouncements by Obama elucidate the unchanged position of the voters. An electorate that has true left leanings would have enthusiastically embraced a bevy of tax and spend promises. Nothing produces a greater "thrill up the leg" of a leftist than a politician unabashedly promising to tax abundantly, gather the tax revenues in Washington, and then spend rabidly on programs that bear the liberal good housekeeping seal.
Ah, but the perceptive Obama knew that if he campaigned as a "tax'em and spend it" guy he would get trounced. So, what to do? Easy - run as a tax cutter with a class warfare edge and say that you will cut taxes on 95% of workers, taxpayers, world citizens, large farm animals -- whatever it takes. He ran as a supply-sider in drag. But that was not all.
Obama also promised to "pay as you go", saying that he would reduce spending in tandem with tax cuts. He offered to personally go line-by-line on the budget and cut spending on programs that are not to his liking. Yes, Barack himself will go line-by-line with a magnifying glass and a red flair pen. A true fiscal hawk! Doesn't sound like a leftist, correct? To say what needs to be said to win means disguising your true impulses and intentions.
On foreign policy, Mr. Obama continued to extend an Iraq withdrawal deadline and heave fog on the conditions of a pull-out. In the gallery. the leftists pined for a "we're out in three months promise". However, he could not say what the left wanted to hear and have any chance of winning. He compounded his nod to the center-right by proclaiming that he intended to redeploy Iraq-stationed troops to Afghanistan rather than bring them home. Leftists were in a tizzy, but the polls moved in his favor. Obama even proffered the possibility of an uninvited military excursion into Pakistan (must pronounce pawh-kis-tan to be an Obamista in good standing) to ensnare Osama Bin Laden, perhaps allowing for the proper reading of Miranda rights and a court-paid attorney to keep the agitated leftists within his orbit. You gotta say what you gotta say to get elected.
Obama moved to the political center to win. That is totally different from having the country lurch to the left. Assuredly, Obama wanted to stand atop the Sears Tower and scream out his leftist tenets with the fervor of a Red Sox fan trapped in a Yankees body. Disciplined, Obama held back because he knew that to achieve the changes he truly wants he must first be elected. To get elected meant accurately drawing a measure of the voters' political stance and, in turn, promising a vague definition of change in a non-threatening manner.
The Republicans can learn two things from all of this: (1) the party tent needs to expand; (2) it would be a monumental error to believe that the electorate has moved left. Republicans need to bury their claws deep into the tax issue as if their party's future depends on it - because it does. By the way, did anyone catch what the new "middle-class" tax rate may be after Obama's tax cut? If you didn't, it's because he did not say it. Lamentably, no one in the media bothered to ask him.
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