No, Obama is not moving to "the center"

The Village conventional wisdom has a way of taking hold of a narrative and NEVER letting go. Hence, they have pronounced that - since the 2010 mid-term election - Obama has moved to the center in terms of his politics...and therefore that becomes the lens through which we are to judge events, even those that don't fit the narrative.

The mistake they make is attempting to position Obama on the left/right continuum in the first place. Of course he lands of the left side in that framework. He is, after all, a Democrat. But did these folks not notice what he said when he first came on the national political scene in 2004?



I'm sure that some of this supposed trajectory from left to center was created by the historical circumstances Obama faced when he first took office. The country was plunging into the potential of another Great Depression and dramatic action was called for. President Obama stood up and took action immediately with the Recovery Act...implementing policies that had been tested and proven to work during such times. And the results of that action were equally dramatic, as we see here.

And then Obama seized the moment of large Democratic majorities to accomplish something he had promised to do - and that Democrats had been trying to get done for almost a century - he spent his political capital on getting health care reformed. Of course that too was tied to our economic recovery in that individuals, businesses and the government were all facing bankruptcies due to escalating costs. And I will forever believe that Obama felt a personal commitment to getting that done. It had the ring from him of a promise he'd made to his mother.

The final step in all of this was Wall Street reform...something that needed to be done to prevent the Great Recession from ever happening again.

But even through all of these major reforms, it wasn't an ideological position on the left that drove Obama. It was the need to get things done...and to do so in the most effective way that was possible in the political climate.

Anyone who has really watched him knows that what drives him is not ideology, but pragmatism. He's demonstrated over and over again that if policies leftists support aren't working, he'll abandon them as quickly as he will those from the right. And in the midst of all of that, he has a North Star that guides him rather than an ideology.

So, my job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there, what is helping people live out their lives; what is giving them more opportunity; what is growing the economy; what is making us more competitive.

Lately I've been thinking about how much stronger your foundation is when its based on pragmatism rather than ideology. Perhaps the best way to explain that is to give an analogy.

I run a small non-profit organization. Occasionally, staff will come to me with a dilemma they face in working with a client and want advice on what to do in order to avoid a law suit (usually this involves needing to take a professional risk to best serve the client). My advice is always to tell them that they can get sued over anything at any time. Therefore, what they should do is determine what they think is in the best interest of the client. Because if you do get sued, when you're asked to testify about what you've done, you want to stand on the firm foundation of your convictions.

As I watch the Republicans these days trying to jump through all kinds of hoops to justify their ideological commitment to lower taxes, even when they don't work, I see the weak foundation they are standing on. Meanwhile, Obama can call their bluff on something like health care reform. He can say, with confidence, "show me something that would work better," because he knows they can't.

That's what it means to be a pragmatic leader. And until the Village recognizes that, they will continue to get it wrong when it comes to President Obama.