Obviously he’s a left-liberal with all the baggage that entails, but he has also shown a marked tendency to accommodate himself to prevailing views, which makes him cautious and reluctant to sign off on the most progressive positions when everyone is watching. He is oriented towards consensus-building, which means he is more likely to forge compromises than approach legislative fights with a take-no-prisoners attitude. As a practical matter, he will have difficulty forcing an enlarged Blue Dog caucus, including more than a few House members who campaigned as pro-life Democrats, to adopt radical legislation. Certainly there are some things he can do through the executive branch where there are fewer checks, but an enlarged Democratic majority is going to bring with it a lot of members from marginal and conservative districts that will make the House Democrats much harder to keep united and in line.

BTW, the irony of Obama’s running mate being named Biden. I’m sure Gayle Quinnell will show you the quickest word scramble way to turn Obama Biden into Osama Bin Laden.

The sad part of all this? The alternate reality is readily believed by a large amount of people. That echo chamber that National Review lives in is HUGE. These are the people crying that he is a crypto-Marxist, etc. They believe that he is the caricature neo-communist pinko of the 50s and 60s. That’s why we’re even having this discussion. They don’t believe Mr. Obama to be a pragmatist, and they breathlessly scream “Ayers! Ayers!!” as if Mr. Ayers is more influential than, say, Paul Volcker.

Idiots.

As for the Global Poverty Act, it reads like some vague, feel-good, “yes, we really do care”-type bill, rather than the foundation upon which our future U.N. overlords will build their oppressive rule. It commits us to nothing, except killing some trees to make reports. Read it yourself and see if you can find a single thing that isn’t qualified with an “as appropriate” or “where possible” or other such wiggle-room phrasing. But, maybe, that’s just what they want you to think.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-2433

But, I think you’re right that Obama may stock the “permanent government” with “loyalists”. One hopes that they will be a more competent bunch than the folks that our current President has stocked the government with.

But, the link above also mentions the GPA, something sponsored by BHO himself. Unless his goal was just to down some trees, one can assume that he’ll push that if he can get away with it. And, given that the MSM has already lied about the GPA, one can assume that they’ll continue to lie about it for him, such as attempts to work in the other MDGs.

Kucinich’s brightest dreams might not all pass, but BHO is going to have to give some things out to his friends on the far-left, and about the only opposition will come from a few House members.

On a slightly related note, if BHO is elected, there’s an excellent chance he’s going to stock the permanent government with loyalists. Look into who he pushed to become IL’s treasurer – and that person’s background – for a preview of the dangers in that.

I rarely discuss his domestic policies because I think he won’t have much opportunity or many resources to implement them, but I tend to focus on foreign policy more than domestic policy as a general rule. If he tries to push through his wacky national service scheme, I will be at the forefront denouncing it; same goes for his health care plan. But that doesn’t seem to be the main focus of domestic policy criticism of Obama.

His “underdeveloped” foreign policy views are every bit as developed as any other nominee’s views for the last twenty years, which may not mean anything, but I’m betting that it does mean something. It may be that some people think his foreign policy views are “underdeveloped and opportunistic” because they haven’t studied them very carefully. There also seems to be an assumption here that his domestic policy is less opportunistic than his foreign policy, when I am willing to bet that it is even more subject to change depending on political circumstances.

And there are those of us who believe that his views on domestic policy (which you rarely discuss) are far more interesting and important than his somewhat under-developed & opportunistic views on foreign policy (which you constantly discuss).

But maybe we’re crazy.

I can think of all kinds of reasons why Obama will be a bad President, but creating the Department of Peace is not one of them.

If it serves BHO’s backers interest (perhaps because of all the new sinecures available), he’ll push it through. And, those who oppose it will be marginalized by the MSM, and BHO’s thuggish surrogates will try to silence them as they’ve done with others.

I think someone needs to make an anti-BHO campaign featuring refugees from authoritarian regimes to wake some people up.