. . . from No Sheeples Here.
No Sheeples is also skeptical about Susan Estrich’s awakening on the healthcare issue, but I, at least, give Ms. Estrich points for her intellectual honesty right now. Furthermore, I just don’t know that anyone thought Obama would gallup to the left this hard, or this fast. I myself thought, “hey—best case, he runs the country like Clinton did. Worst case, he goes down the Carter Highway, in which case we’re only stuck with him for one term.”
Wrong again. On that note, check out Victor Davis Hanson:
What Might Have Happened
Remember Obama’s initial signature speech (e.g., “there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America”), and all the subsequent conciliatory talk of no blue state, no red state America? Obama won, of course, because he captivated the tiny, but influential left, registered vast numbers of new minority voters, raised a billion dollars, and reconstituted the liberal base. But the key margin that got him from 45 to 53% were the independents and old Reagan Democrats. And what put them on board was not just their weariness with George Bush, but rather their flawed hunch that Obama was another Clinton rather than Carter, a realist and centrist rather than an ossified ideologue, who could talk well, bring factions together, and govern from the center.
Had Obama just continued his charade of the campaign in which he reassured centrists on taxes, defense, energy, and spending, he would now be in a far stronger position with Congress, and not falling in the polls.
Imagine not that in his first six months Obama had acted like a conservative (he could not since he won on a liberal agenda), but simply as a more moderate Clinton-like Democrat, albeit with more humility and skepticism . . . .
Read the whole thing. I will be telling this with a sigh, ages and ages hence . . .
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It’s silly to complain about a liberal’s ability to ‘bring people together’ when conservatives as individuals and groups have expressed no similar interest in such a goal. Obama has made more gestures to conservatives in his first couple of months than Bush made towards liberals in eight years. For the most part, he’s continuing with most of the Bush administration’s destructive policies. From my seat, there’s no reason for liberals to be pleased with the President, and nothing but reasons for conservatives to be excited and grateful.
Of course, that would assume a modicum of intellectual honesty on the part of the conservative movement, which as we all know, is far too generous. You shouldn’t expect to be taken seriously when you’re throwing tea parties and railing about spending while only a few years ago you were clamoring for your own spending projects.