Ellington

A President Barack Obama will be the most scrutinized president since Abraham Lincoln. Ironically, the reason for this has less to do with race, though it will still play a role in how many view him. He's lifted public passions and expectations to the clouds with his soaring rhetoric about hope and change, and portrayed himself as the man who can repair the shambles of Bush's domestic and foreign policies.

That's quite a cross for a senator halfway through his first term, with a wafer-thin voting record, little experience with foreign policy matters, and who is still fuzzy about programs on affordable health care, education, criminal justice system reform, tax policy and the housing crisis. A man who needs consistency in his pronouncements on winding down the Iraq war and the fight against terrorism.

The jury is deliberating on just how many of those inflated expectations he can fulfill. But there are glaring clues as to how much change he can or will even try to make. One is his record in the Illinois state Legislature. At first glance, his votes and views during his days in the Illinois Senate on taxes, abortion, civil liberties, civil rights, law enforcement and capital punishment give much comfort to those who crave for him to make the changes he hints at. His stance on tax hikes marked him with some business and taxpayer interest groups as another tax-and-spend Democrat, and his views on social issues marked him as an unabashed liberal.

He's anything but, however, and that's another clue as to what to expect from an Obama White House. He's a centrist Democrat who is quickly replacing the Clintons, the Democratic Party's shot callers, as the consummate party insider; the new go-to guy. Corporate donors, Hollywood moguls and, through the back door, fat-cat lobbyists with the quiet nod of Democratic Party insiders, have dumped millions into his campaign. They don't shower money, favors and promotional praise on a candidate unless they are comfortable that the candidate will not stray too far off the beaten political path by abandoning the moderate, "respectable" approach to policy making.

In the White House, Obama will move cautiously and do everything he can to avoid the tag "liberal." The majority of Congress—Democrats and Republicans—are centrist to conservative to even ultra-conservative. They would instantly draw their line in the sand against him if he makes a quick push for big tax hikes for education and health care, or a push for a quick withdrawal from Iraq, which Obama does not favor.

He will do everything he can to escape the fate that befell Bill Clinton the instant he touched a toe in the White House. Republicans waged a gutter-wallowing personal and political stealth, and at times, open war against Clinton and his policies, although he made no pretense of being a liberal Democrat. Their attack arsenal included everything from personal slander to stonewalling his judicial appointments and his stab at health care reform. That forced Clinton to tiptoe even further to the right on the death penalty, beefing up police power, gay rights, welfare reform and reining in bloated military spending, while assuring that the Democratic Party would not pander to minorities and the poor.

Obama's pro-choice and abortion rights defense in the Illinois Legislature earned him a perfect rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council. He was also a major backer of legislation limiting police interrogations and requiring police to keep racial stats on unwarranted traffic stops, and he supported strict gun control. These are three hyper-sensitive issues for conservatives. If Obama puts White House muscle into big reform fights on these issues, he will draw instant fire from national right-to-life groups, police unions and the NRA.

It's not likely he'll risk that; it's not his style anyway. He got high marks from Illinois Senate Republicans precisely for his willingness to horse trade, deal make and compromise on the touchiest of conservative issues. They praised him as a flexible politician and consensus builder who listened to the views of his Republican opponents.

American politics demands that, especially of moderate Democrats. With Obama, corporations and lobbyists will be even more hawk-like in guarding the legislative door to protect their interests. Conservatives will tighten their perennial gatekeeping against any effort to push abortion rights, and the defense industry will be even more vigilant against any effort at deep military slashes.

Any president that bucks these dominant special interests risks being branded anti-police, anti-business, pro-abortion, pro-labor, pro-gun control and a dreaded tax-and-spend liberal Democrat. That fear, more often than not, translates into even the best-intentioned president caving in when the battle is on for crucial political and social reforms. That will include even one who has made hope and change his ticket to the White House.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is "The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation between African-Americans and Hispanics" (Middle Passage Press, 2007, $19.95).

Previous Comments

ID

75827

Comment

John Kerry is endorsing Obama. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Maybe that will be vengeance for those who threatened to move to Canada when Kerry lost in 2004, but it could backfire due to the "botched joke" incident.

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2008-01-10T10:32:55-06:00

ID

75828

Comment

His endorsement won't hurt Obama but I doubt that it will help him any more than Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean helped in 2004.

Author

Jeff Lucas

Date

2008-01-10T21:03:18-06:00

ID

75829

Comment

Gore endorsed Dean? Yikes. "AND WE'RE GOING TO ALABAMA, AND TENNESSEE, AND KENTUCKY, AND NEVADA, AND RHODE ISLAND...!!!"

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2008-01-10T21:49:22-06:00