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On The Move

Obama’s transformation from critic to champion of welfare reform is the latest in a series of moves to the center. ~Political Radar Mickey Kaus will be pleased.  By “moves to the center,” of course, they are referring to expedient changes in position.  One is reminded of Obama’s old line against Clinton that she wanted to […]

Obama’s transformation from critic to champion of welfare reform is the latest in a series of moves to the center. ~Political Radar

Mickey Kaus will be pleased.  By “moves to the center,” of course, they are referring to expedient changes in position.  One is reminded of Obama’s old line against Clinton that she wanted to take credit for everything that worked in her husband’s administration and not take the blame for things that went wrong.  This was a clever and effective line, and it exposed Clinton’s claim of “experience” as the nonsense it was.  Now Obama would like to take credit for a ’90s welfare reform measure that he actually opposed at the time.  He presumably opposed it at the time because it was extremely unpopular in his district.  Instead of citing legislation that he actually supported and giving his reasons why he didn’t support welfare reform in the ’90s, he is exhibiting once again his aversion to confrontation and his habit of taking the path of least resistance.  With one or two things, a “pivot” to the center can be both necessary and smart.  To make so many changes in just the last two weeks (e.g., FISA, NAFTA, public financing, the D.C. gun ban and now this) reflects the sort of craven political calculation that is the antithesis of political leadership, while at the same time implying that Obama’s judgement must have been frequently flawed on many, many occasions, which is hardly reassuring when the candidate is principally running on his judgement. 

Update: C.J. Smith responds with some interesting points, but I think he is confusing Obama’s general policy record on some things (e.g., trade, guns) with his specific statements about NAFTA and the D.C. gun ban.  It’s true that Obama is generally a free trader, but one who will sometimes oppose free-trade agreements, such as CAFTA, when they are strongly opposed by his constituents, but it’s also true that he adopted a very strong anti-NAFTA line for the purposes of wooing labour support in the primaries and then once the nomination was his he could revert back to his support for the agreement.  NAFTA is the best example of a case where he simply demagogued an issue for votes while making clear to the interests that had a large stake in maintaining the status quo that he wasn’t seriously going to re-negotiate the agreement.  On the D.C. gun ban, his campaign said that he thought it was constitutional, which they have since tried to run away from by calling it an “inartful” statement.  I suppose it depends on what the meaning of “constitutional” is, right?  Once the decision came down, suddenly the ban was unconstitutional.  On public financing, you can understand why he did it, but that doesn’t change the fact that he unceremoniously threw out what he had pledged to do. 

Second Update: As I note below in the comments, this welfare item is the least of Obama’s “moves” that should raise doubts about his credibility as a reformer.  See Ambinder’s discussion of the relevant state legislation that Obama is touting in his second national ad, and see for yourself whether touting this bill really jibes with his opposition to the federal welfare reform legislation.  Maybe I am reading too much into this item, but given all the reversals of the last couple of weeks I think erring on the side of skepticism makes more sense.

Third Update: On a related note, Dominic Lawson discusses the reversals of recent weeks. 

Fourth Update: For whatever it’s worth (not a lot), Dick Morris has a column on the welfare item.

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