Perils of Playing Post-Partisan?

Democratic Senator Barack Obama's campaign argument of "post-partisanship" and "getting past the divisiveness of the 60s" is largely a fraud. The man is a liberal, which, domestically, to me is the greatest rationale for his candidacy. In fact, he may boast the most liberal agenda of any Democratic aspirant in twenty years. In the modern era, American voters have invariably rejected progressive presidential candidates, as one could note from looking at four Democratic debacles in five election cycles from 1972-1988.

I happen to think the Messiah's strategy is a good one, in other words, use his youth, different skin color, and soaring oratory to camouflague the full force of his liberalism to independent voters enamored by him but perhaps not his judicial nominees or foreign policy. It is an article of faith from some liberals that Ronald Reagan won his four races (counting California) owing not to his ideas, which never would have seen, say, 59% approval, but to his personality, warmth, and smile. The WSJ, among other conservative entities, vigorously denies this.

Would Obama prove able to continue the charade all the way through November? I say "charade" because nowhere in his record is there any evidence of a post-partisanship philosophy. We don't need the National Journal rankings to underscore the pureness of his actions throughout his political career, yet it illuminates his even more leftward tilt aptly. The Obama foreign policy, particularly if congruous with the hard-left views of his guru Samantha Power, offers zero to people slightly right of Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council. Domestically, if not as angry as John Edwards (for reasons articulated here), his record and policy recommendations are phenomenal... yet straight out of a long-rejected liberal playbook.

To achieve true post-partisan status, one must do two things. First, in the simplest form, is to win an enormous majority (think FDR and the New Dealers in '36) which forces the demoralized opposition to make severe compromises to avoid possible annihilation or in extreme cases, extinction. I've spoken earlier how Barack has the opportunity to achieve a massive, transformational victory. The other way is to, well, actually side with conservatives on some key issues and liberals on a few others, like moi. My domestic beliefs are dyed-in-the-wool orthodox, bleeding heart liberalism, trending toward European-style socialism, further to the left than even Denny K on some matters. Yet the ideology of my foreign policy is at least forty years removed from Democratic Party platforms, best represented by the FDR-Truman-Kennedy nexus, with a dollop of Reaganism and, yes, Bushism thrown in for good measure.

The staggering victory margin is obviously more appealing because fellows such as John Anderson and Joseph Liberman, to name two, annoy their party base sufficiently to fail miserably in nominating contests. I have seen my name linked with "The Last Honest Man" several times by cocooner Joe, which, for international ideology, I cannot readily dispute. I only wish to make clear my domestic policy FAR exceeds the tolerable progressivism of the Connecticut senator.

John McCain, ole Mad Mac himself, would also seem to have a more valid claim to post-partisanship than Senator Obama, namely through campaign-finance and immigration reform. We could also throw in climate-change, alas, for all of the feathers he ruffles in the GOP over global warming, his position is still to the right of mine--a person that has compared GWI (Global Warming Incorporated) to a new religion. He also has a newfound love for regressive taxes and no understanding of the need for universal health care let alone same-sex marriage. New York City chieftain Mike Bloomberg is largely the same, for all his touted independence he is little more than a progressive Democrat, and more nanny-like than even Hillary Clinton at present.

President Bush, in his initial run for the White House, made similiar noises as Barack Obama, but I could argue he went further in 1999-2000 than the Illinois Democrat has done today. In the first place, he publicly repudiated his party's leadership in Washington over their handling of Monicagate, and worked to set his candidacy between DeLay and Gore. His positions on spending, even before his 2003 apostasy in the form of the Medicare reform bill, went against conservative ideology. Aside from obliquely criticizing HRC and Democratic leaders on their AUMF vote in October 2002, the Next One has rarely gone against DNC protocol.

Signs of his liberalism are beginning to manifest via the Kennedy and MoveOn.org endorsements; post-partisan they are not. Yet, liberals might argue, Reagan had the southern gun-toting, bigoted racists and he still carried New York twice, so why can't Obama's image fool American voters? As long as he does not show us "black anger" that makes us think of Panthers and Jesse Jackson, heaven forbid, people will fall in love with his narrative and voice and entirely forget his record and policy goals. A post-partisan figure would nominate a Stephen Breyer to the US Supreme Court, Obama or Clinton would not. A post-partisan figure would attempt to work with the Senate to ratify Kyoto II, Obama or Clinton will try to jam it down their throats.

Famed NYT economy columnist Paul Krugman does not believe we can have post-partisanship leaders in this time of our history, which is why he wrote adoringly of Edwards and skeptical of Obama, especially on health care. Krugman is not alone in worrying that a President Obama's reached out hand would get bitten off by his political opponents in a way the feisty and ferocious Clinton regime would not. Perhaps Obama understands that black candidates must take on the facade of post-partisanship or they have zero chance of getting nominated by the Democratic Party, let alone elected president, because millions of white people remain unnerved by "uppity" controversial people of color, to include Hispanics.

If Obama could convince ~30% of Republicans to vote for him then he would triumph in a landslide of unparalleled proportions, otherwise he may find his goodwill gestures reciprocated through McConnell filibusters. Then what? Does he throw down the hammer and try to win an important argument by the narrowest of margins? I think it is a sad reflection on our country that we remain unreceptive to partisan minorities, who often have far more to complain about than white liberals. Nonetheless, Barack Obama has embraced post-partisanship as his ticket out of the glamorous Democratic primary. Live by the sword, die by the sword, and if their fake outrage derived from his Reagan comments is any indication, the Clintons are aiming to affix the label of "naive" on him, and polls show Democrats are buying it.