Has President Obama been as progressive as he campaigned to be, as transformative as you had hoped? Has the reality of governance forced a more moderate hand? Has his naiveté forced a more right leaning hand? Or is he just a lefty, progressive socialist?
Recently cliffelam, mk and b_b were having a discussion regarding this and I'm curious what you all think? Where does Obama, now that we have a term to look back on, fall on the political spectrum?
I'll quote b_b who said in jest regarding his policies:
- He's ended the Bush tax cuts, restored the Glass-Steagall Act, enacted Gay Marriage nationwide, ended the wars and closed Gitmo.
Edit: He also stopped No Child Left behind and doubled science funding. Yippee!
-Pretty hard to call him a "leftie". From where I stand he seems pretty smack dab in the middle ---in an opportunistic way. But I'd like to know why I'm wrong or what the other opinions out there are. We are entering in to what will be a very exciting political climate imo.
Fire away!
I would say Obama is a pragmatic progressive. If you don't see him reaching for more, it's because he knows there's no way in hell he's gonna get it yet. So he reaches for less, things he thinks he can get. And then once he gets them, looks for ways to make the next step. He plays a very long chess game. We're criticizing him for sacrificing a bunch of pieces half way through. I'm still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and see what the end game looks like.
And that was all with a Republican opposition that was not nearly so obstructionist, experienced, insane or entrenched as the one Obama faces today. In Clinton's day, Fox News had not yet become the bastion of right wing propaganda that it is today, there were some campaign finance laws in place, Republicans had not yet perfected their use of the filibuster to completely shutdown the government and there was no Tea Party.