Obama shifts to the Center : Political or real?

Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 8:09 am

One of the most difficult thing for a non-Centrist politician to do is to shift to the center. In American context, it is always virtually impossible for a Democrat to piss off the liberal base and for a Republican to piss off their conservative base.

President Obama has been doing that all week though. First was the release of the photos. He decided against releasing those photos after getting advice from General Patreus and General Odierno. This was viewed as a flip-flop by the conservatives and they mocked him.

The liberals were angry with him and demanded that these photos be released. But this makes him more popular amongst soldiers in the eyes of the public. He seems to go against his base when his general advices him to; that is something that goes down well with the public.

His next move was to carry on with the military tribunals with some of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. This is the move that really puzzles me. Firstly, if military tribunals are the best way to go about trying these people, why must it be stopped in 7 months? Is there really enough time to try all these people in 7 months? They are being tried for terrorism, not radio theft. Secondly, why try them in military tribunals now? Why can’t they be tried in courts when they have so many similar rights as other crooks?

His latest move makes a lot of sense. He made the very popular Governor of Utah, John Huntsman Junior the Ambassador to China. That is a very practical move as Governor Huntsman is very fluent in Mandarin. He also has served as an Ambassador before and thus has the experience for the job.

What is shocking about that move though now is that there are many Republicans that are now suddenly after Governor Huntsman. “There is no such thing as a moderate Republican.” “All moderate Republicans are Democrats in disguise.” Many also actually criticize him taking this position. The more saner ones say it is all a ploy by President Obama to take out his best competitor for the 2012 General election.

The question that morphs out of this week is this: Is what President Obama doing now politically motivated or is it something that he is doing it for the best interests of America? Some moves he make are really making his base angry, something no politician wants to do. Unless it is strategy that he is pursuing.

21% of American voters are Republican, 37% are Democrats and 42% are independents. In my opinion, there is a significant chunk of independents (about 25% of them) are inclined to vote Republican but pol themselves as Independents. I think that the amount of Independents that are inclined Democrats are much less than that and the rest are the swing vote.

So on a perspective, about 30% of people would never vote for President Obama in the next elections. About the same number would. So the main game changers are the Independents. And the more centrist that he goes, the more he appeals to them. The more he seems to be standing up against the far left and at the same time being barraged by the far right for every breath he takes, the more appeal he has with the Independents.

I am leaning towards the President playing a game of politics here. He seem to want to run against a radical right person and virtually took one of the best rivals out of the contention the next round. He also seem to be courting the central base of American politics.

The argument against this is this: Isn’t it too early for the President to think about re-election? He still has elections in 2010 for the House and Senate to think about. He needs his Democrats to pus his agenda. Though voters are more Independent then they are either party, the Senate and House are not. He needs them.

President Obama also is not getting the Republican support that he is hoping for. They are on a all out-out-war with him. Many Americans are turned off by this behavior but in reality, this is what opposition parties all around the world do.

To end it all off, while I think that it is much a political week for President Obama, there are also other doses of reality that influence in his choice to making his decisions.

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