Obama’s Ambition Is Greater Than His Ideology

A few days ago, Time Magazine chose Barack Obama for its 2008 Man of the Year due to his notoriety, but Obama’s choice of evangelical pastor Rick Warren to say the prayer at his inauguration has caused an even bigger sensation. To the American media and the general public, this choice has made such an impact because, in making it, Obama has sent voters an important signal.

Apart from his choice of Warren, Obama has, since becoming president-elect in November, made a series of choices that are not in line with his own ideology, dashing the hopes of his supporters and re-kindling those of his critics. On economic policy, Obama promised during the election that he would raise taxes on capital gains and the upper-income bracket, but following the election he has instead indicated that under current economic conditions, raising taxes would make the situation worse; his choice of Larry Summers to be his economic adviser also showed that he would not lean to the left on economic policy, since Summers, once Clinton’s treasury secretary and the former president of Harvard, is an economist acceptable to conservatives; on foreign policy, Obama chose Hillary Clinton for secretary of state, though her foreign policy during the primaries was more hawkish than Obama’s (taking a tougher attitude with Iran, for example), and the choice to retain Secretary of Defense Robert Gates further demonstrates that Obama will continue the Bush administration’s Middle East strategy. To a large extent, these choices have broken the promises of Obama’s campaign; for those supporters hoping for an immediate pullout from Iraq, these sorts of choices have been a great disappointment. In his other Cabinet appointments, Obama has also made centrist choices, choices at odds with his left-wing principles.

In general, following the election, American politicians tend to shift toward the center, and Obama is no exception. In November’s election, he won a decisive victory with 53% of the vote, yet 47% of voters did not vote for him – in other words, 57 million Americans voted against Obama, and Obama undoubtedly needs to come to terms with this group, though Obama’s deviation from left-wing politics causes great anger and disappointment among his supporters. Why did Obama make these choices that are at odds with his own ideology? Obama could certainly govern according to his left-wing principles – he seems to have the power to do so since, starting tomorrow, the Democrats will take both the White House and Capitol Hill – but Obama apparently has no plans to steer America sharply to the left.

Many of Obama’s supporters believe him to be the leader of a new type of political movement – but even more so, they believe he is a shrewd, traditional politician. During the election process, he already demonstrated his political savvy, even showing up his veteran opponent McCain, who impulsively suspended his campaign to return to Washington in the midst of the financial crisis; Obama instead showed great calm, a necessary quality of a seasoned politician. Further, although Obama is a man of the left, he has bigger political ambitions than being a one-term president, and knows that if he wants to be re-elected, he must maintain the center and work with moderates while also coming to terms with the conservative right.

America is still a center-right nation. Election surveys show that among voters, those identifying themselves as conservatives outnumber liberals (34% vs. 22%). Obama won over 20% of conservatives, whereas McCain claimed 10% of liberal voters. To get re-elected, Obama knows that he needs to take the majority of mainstream voters, along with 20% of conservatives’ votes. In this election, some conservatives voted for Obama, believing that he would not follow a left-wing path. Obama hasn’t let them down; his choice of evangelical leader Warren is a move to gratify evangelical voters.

To the 57 million voters who cast their ballots for McCain, Obama’s election was a disappointment. Following Obama’s victory, Obama’s many supporters have experienced an even bigger disappointment; they had hoped he would install a left-wing cabinet, but Obama’s ambition overcame his ideology. If there were no re-election campaign coming up in four years, perhaps Obama would simply make no allowances for the needs of those 57 million voters. But due to the next election, Obama needs to sacrifice a few planks of his platform; re-election will give him an even bigger opportunity to realize his ambitious aspirations.