In the weeks just before the presidential election, and the months between the election and inauguration, I heard many speculate that Obama would probably govern from the center in order to be more able to draw Republican members of Congress across the aisle.
If you’re still holding onto that idea, thinking that Pres. Obama would prove to be more pragmatic than idealistic, I think it’s time for you to put that notion aside. In his State of the Union address tonight, the President clearly signaled that he is going to press hard to enact as much of his agenda as possible this year. Buckle up for nationalized healthcare and banks. And college should be free, because people always appreciate things they don’t pay for more than what they work to purchase for themselves.
The one bright spot in this for me is that Obama is going to make it very easy for conservatives to distinguish themselves from his brand of liberalism, but that could be small consolation for all that the next four years look to have in store.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Doug, I agree completely. The center is something that Mr. Obama does not know. It will take decades to dismantle the damage that this ‘agenda’ is going to inflict on our great nation. We need true conservatives to step up and unite against him and his devotee`s.
Kyle Coldren
I believe you’re actually more optimistic than I am in one sense. I think about how much - errr, make that how little - has been “dismantled” from FDR’s New Deal, and LBJ’s Great Society, and I have to expect that we will live under the structures that Obama erects certainly for our lifetimes. Maybe our children will see them torn down.
The one chance we have to limit the damage is to have Pelosi and Reid thrown out in 2010. It will have to be a new breed of Republicans that come in that year if we’re to be able to undo any of the damage, though. Putting the same weak, unprincipled, can’t-wait-to-concede Republican leadership back in power would be a waste of time. The Democrats are better at driving their agenda, whether they are in the majority or the minority, than the Republicans when they are in the majority. Look at what they did in the “stimulus” (I can’t say that with a straight face) package: In less than a month after Obama took office, they wiped out the Welfare reforms that were, after much struggle, forced on Clinton by the Republican Congress in the 90s. And they managed to make it appear to be such a relatively minor provision of that legislation that it wasn’t even mentioned during debate. (Of course, maybe nobody had read that part of the bill at that point…)