The question is no longer on what has Obama backtracked,but rather on what has he not

[megimoo]

Fourth of July Flopitis

The question is no longer on what has Obama backtracked,but rather on what has he not?

The political problems with Obama's flopitis are twofold: one, it is coming late in the season. To defeat Hillary he went hard left in the void left by Edwards. But the primary dragged on so long, that when he just recently flipped and flopped to leave the hard left on NAFTA, Trinity Church, Rev. Wright, FISA, gun control, campaign financing, death penalty, Iran, Iraq, Jerusalem, etc. he did so in the near summer, not late winter. The result is that his formerly left positions were showcased longer than most go-to-the-center politicians and thus his abandonment of them more striking and fresh in our memories.

For each inoperative "I can no more disown Rev. Wright" statement, there comes another each day about not quite pulling out of Iraq or wire-taps sorta okay, or NOT meeting John McCain "anywhere, anytime." Every opportunist knows that in presidential politics such shamelessness should be over and done with by March.

Second, to employ a well-known Obamism, Obama 'raised the bar' so high with his 'hope and change' sophistry about transcending lobbyists, tawdry campaign financing, et. al. that he is now being hoisted on his own petard — flip-flopping is the normal sort of rank opportunism, but for a messiah it is tantamount to sacrilege and heresy.

Some of us have been ad nauseam suggesting Democratic buyer's remorse soon, and still stand by that prediction. The problem is not that the Left will abandon him; they won't, and will gladly put up with an Iraqi war-fighter, huge private cash raiser, wire-tapper, free-trader, and gun-rights/death penalty advocate if he brings them all back to power. (But watch their furor if Obama sinks below McCain in the polls.) Instead the rub is that Obama's new legions of hopers and changers won't register, work, and turn out in sufficient numbers if they feel that they've been had and made to look silly, and Obama is just another Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale/John Kerry. Nor will all this triangulation necessarily win the "clingers" vote, even though the about-faces are done on their behalf.

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson070508.html

[Elspeth]

Interesting article, although I disagree with the characterization of the Democratic agenda. However, I agree wholeheartedly that buyers' remorse is already setting in, and this is why Skinner's Democratic Underground has become the Obama Underground: no dissent is tolerable because it will bring down the whole gossamer scaffold on which Obama's support is built.

What keeps many Dems supporting Obama is just the idea of supporting Obama, not anything about his positions on issues or what he really intends to do. I remember asking Obama supporters during the primary to tell me what their candidate intended to do once elected. When a supporter can't think of a single concrete thing the candidate stands for or intends to do, then the support for that candidate is not practical, principled, or even ideological but totally and entirely emotional. Emotional support is vulnerable to emotional states like the pain of betrayal, which is why DU can't even talk about Obama's frighteningly rapid flipflops on FISA, late term abortion, the death penalty, public campaign financing, diplomacy with Iran, withdrawal from Iraq, NAFTA, and gun control without members first declaring that they will be voting for Obama anyway, or as one DUer put it, "voting for Obama come hell or high water."

Emotional pain leads either to wisdom or denial, and in the case of the most vehement Obama supporters, it will be denial for now. But I do agree with the author of the article that there will fewer hands stuffing envelopes, ringing doorbells, and picking up telephones for the candidate.

[megimoo]

Interesting article, although I disagree with the characterization of the Democratic agenda. However, I agree wholeheartedly that buyers' remorse is already setting in, and this is why Skinner's Democratic Underground has become the Obama Underground: no dissent is tolerable because it will bring down the whole gossamer scaffold on which Obama's support is built.

What keeps many Dems supporting Obama is just the idea of supporting Obama, not anything about his positions on issues or what he really intends to do. I remember asking Obama supporters during the primary to tell me what their candidate intended to do once elected. When a supporter can't think of a single concrete thing the candidate stands for or intends to do, then the support for that candidate is not practical, principled, or even ideological but totally and entirely emotional. Emotional support is vulnerable to emotional states like the pain of betrayal, which is why DU can't even talk about Obama's frighteningly rapid flipflops on FISA, late term abortion, the death penalty, public campaign financing, diplomacy with Iran, withdrawal from Iraq, NAFTA, and gun control without members first declaring that they will be voting for Obama anyway, or as one DUer put it, "voting for Obama come hell or high water."

Emotional pain leads either to wisdom or denial, and in the case of the most vehement Obama supporters, it will be denial for now. But I do agree with the author of the article that there will fewer hands stuffing envelopes, ringing doorbells, and picking up telephones for the candidate.

So he's back to his hard core radical support having failed in his drive to the center and having lost fringe liberals along the way ?

[Elspeth]

So he's back to his hard core radical support having failed in his drive to the center and having lost fringe liberals along the way ?

It's not that simple.

*He's lost the moderate Democrats who knew he had to be lying about a sudden withdrawal of troops from Iraq and against whom he regularly played the race card.
*He's lost many Clinton supporters who were appalled by his characterization of the Clintons as racists and by the overt misogyny evident in some of his actions and in those of his followers.
*He's now losing some of the far left progressives who believed in him without checking his history or bonafides first, and are now experiencing the pain of betrayal as Barack throws them and their core beliefs under the bus.
*And, if David Sirota is correct, even the middle of the road voter--the one who has no party affiliation--is going to think twice about voting for a guy who doesn't seem to stick to any core beliefs.

We'll see if Obama can come back from this, but a lot depends on how much in denial the progressives remain.