It is an open question whether Barack Obama is what is commonly called an "ideologue," which is to say, a politician who acts consistently out of principle. He is certainly a committed partisan, voting with his own party virtually all of the time. His choice of a Chief of Staff is some indication of this:
Roger M. sends me this note:
Just a note that for a President-elect who said he wanted to be bipartisan, his selection of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff seems a contradiction. Emanuel has been the most partisan Democrat in the Congress. Of course part of that stems from his tenure as Chair of the DCCC, but I wonder if this White House is without saying it planning to wage war on the remaining GOP in the Congress--circle the wagons boys!!!.
Just right now, Roger, I am not sure if the Republicans have enough wagons left to form a complete circle. Obama is a winner. It is not clear that he is consistently committed to anything other than winning. If he remains so, it might be very bad for Republicans, but perhaps not so bad for the country. He will probably move to the center, at least on some issues, so as to neutralize the opposition. Bill Clinton did so, and we got some pretty good policy out of that.
If he tacks decisively to the left, that will probably energize the opposition and help the Republicans revive. But he might get a lot of seriously leftist legislation passed, and that can be hard to undo. Just look at the French, who had found it nearly impossible to reform their sclerotic economy. It's going to be a fun four years, at least.
Recent Comments