There is increasing concern that Preisdent Obama is betraying the progressive wing of his own party. Additional evidence of this can be seen in the week's Time article on how Greg Craig got forced out of his position by the pragmatists, especially Rahm Emmanuel, who prefer decisions that give red meat to liberals while also reassuring centrists or traditionalists that Obama isn't one of these crazy liberals. In the case of Craig, it was the backtracking of the promise to liberals to end all the things the Bush Administration did that got hundreds of thousands of ideological liberals to knock on doors for John Kerry in 2004 (what else could have stirred so many to spend so much time working for such a boring and uninspiring candidate?).
The strategy is consistent with Obama, the WYSIWYG President, but it may also be playing into the Republican hope that they may make significant gains in 2010 by driving a wedge into the Obama coalition. Republicans seem to have done a great job of labeling Obama as an ideological liberal for those who think they are uncomfortable with liberals (for those of you who have forgotten, he was probably the most centrist of the 2008 Democratic nomination candidates). The anger among progressives that seems to be emerging over Obama's reluctance to take a clear stand on virtually anything (like W did, much to the chagrin of those very liberals who now complain about Obama), combined with what is an irrational fear among conservatives that Obama is a liberal socialist commie authoritarian multiculturalist, spells potential doom for Obama in 2010.
Shades of Clinton in 1994? Or, shades of LBJ in 1966? My hunch (and by the way, my hunches are nearly perfect, although I do not have the proper documentation to support this assertion) is that Obama will be more like FDR in 1934 or 1938...
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