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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama has governed as a conservative, says ex-GOP Obama backer
So, this is interesting...
President Barack Obama has governed as a moderate conservative, former Reagan administration domestic policy aide Bruce Bartlett writes in a new essay for the eclectic American Conservative magazine.
Bartlett, an economic policy expert who left the Republican Party amid disgust with President George W. Bushs fiscal policies and backed Obama in 2008, contends that a look at Obamas track record reveals a president whos basically a liberal Republican of yore. From the beginning of his administration, Bartlett argues, Obama has charted a center-right course on both foreign and domestic policy issues.
Populating his administration with hawks like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama has presided over new military engagements abroad while overseeing a draconian crackdown on national security leaks at home, Bartlett notes.
Meanwhile, Obama has pursued very conservative fiscal policies, Bartlett writes, signing a stimulus package that was far smaller than what experts and advisers like Christina Romer found would be necessary to really prime the nations economic pump. Moreover, Obama has conducted himself like a deficit hawk, proposing much deeper cuts in spending and the deficit than did the Republicans during the 2011 budget negotiations, when a deal eluded the two parties. And dont buy into the the GOP harping that Obama hates business, Bartlett cautions. The president, he says, has bent over backward to protect corporate profits.
What about the Affordable Care Act, Obamas signature domestic policy achievement? That, too, is evidence of Obamas conservatism, Bartlett writes. Observing that Obamacares market-based approach drew on a model put forth by the right-wing Heritage Foundation and by Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Bartlett contrasts Obamacare with a real left-wing alternative like universal Medicare. So why are conservatives so obstinately opposed to a fundamentally conservative health care law? The only thing is that it was now supported by a Democratic president that Republicans vowed to fight on every single issue, Bartlett writes.
More here: http://www.salon.com/2014/10/21/reagan_adviser_bruce_bartlett_face_it_obama_is_a_conservative/
Barlett's article here: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/obama-is-a-republican/
It's not every day when an article in American Conservative sounds like a DU post ...
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)These days conservative = batshit insane theocratic fascist.
My analysis would be:
Social issues - liberal
Economics - center left
Foreign policy - center
Proud Public Servant
(2,097 posts)Both parties had them. Theirs included most of their New England and Mid-Atlantic politicians (e.g., George HW Bush, Christine Todd Whitman, William Weld). Ours included Scoop Jackson and Sam Nunn. John Huntsman is probably the closest thing we've seen to one on the national stage lately.
NOVA_Dem
(620 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)crazy party.
My opinion:
Social Issues - Center Left
Economics - Center Right
Foreign Policy - Right
Security State - Right
polichick
(37,152 posts)Oh yeah, he's an EX-Republican.
fadedrose
(10,044 posts)Maybe what was conservative was not Obama, but the Republican-majority House, and Democratic senators in Red states.
Obama, given lemons, made lemonade but without sugar.
Without cuts, the gop wanted to shut down the government, withheld funding, etc. He pleaded many times to grant further unemployment benefits without success.
Sequestering was not Obama's first choice. Paying our bills was.
If we manage not to lose any more seats, some changes can be expected in the ACA act that are more liberal. It depends on public support that may show up in the upcoming elections in red states where Medicaid is helping the poorest...
And putting the Clinton people in his cabinet was to win the loyalty of the very angry supporters who were angry that Obama won the election. Didn't do much good, did it. It took a year or so before Bill would even talk to him...
Yeah, Obama was 100% conservative if you overlook the obstacles he could not overcome.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)If you completely overlook what he has actually done.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)Bombing Libya in defiance of a legal Congressional directive not to.
Expanding drone operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere.
Continuing the operation of black sites in Somalia and elsewhere.
Designating all military-aged males as "enemy combatants" to artificially decrease the number of reported civilian drone casualties.
Authorizing rules of engagement that include "double tap" strikes against first responders and "signature strikes" that target groups of people whose identification as "terrorists" has not been confirmed, resulting in excessive and predictable civilian casualties.
Increasing military operations in Africa by 217% since his inauguration.
Codifying indefinite detention into law and thus discarding the writ of habeus corpus as a cornerstone of American civil rights.
Exceeding the Bush Administration with regard to secrecy, classification of government functions and prosecution of whistleblowers.
Criminalizing adversarial journalism.
Declaring the power to execute American citizens anywhere in the world without due process and based solely on the President's discretion, with no accountability or overwatch.
All of those things have NOTHING to do with Republican obstruction. It's GWB's bellicose foreign policy, continued and accelerated.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)is somewhere slightly to the right of where the pre-Raygun/religulous loony/neocon Republican Party was in the mid 1970s. Tricky Dick Nixon proposed something not unlike the ACA back in the early 1970s.
The modern Repukes are roughly where the Birchers, racists, reactionary super-rich. unreconstructed McCarthyites and other organized paranoids were back in the 1960s. In those days they were denounced by the Repukes. Now they're the base of the party.
Proud Public Servant
(2,097 posts)I am liberal Democrat.Obama Is moderate on social Issues. and somewhat conservative when It comes to Economics and foreign
Policy not the radical liberal or secret muslim some will call him.
I am 40 years old.Starting voting at 18 In 1992 and closest there have been to liberal for president Is Kerry and he Is centrist on
some things.But could be called a bit more liberal than Obama on a few things.
Come 2016 the MSM will help GOP call Hillary the most liberal candiate for president ever but that will be a crook.She is more conservative than Obama.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Like I always thought. Bill Clinton is slighty to his right and both Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren are to his left and over near the periphery is Bernie Sanders.....that is all
I don't need a Conservatives opinion.....I knew this before he won the Primary...
Robbins
(5,066 posts)Even back In 2008 I called Obama a moderate Democratic.I am more liberal than he ever was.
Obama Is to the left of Bill Clinton as Is Elizabeth Warren.Hillary Is about to the right of Obama that Bill Clinton Is.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Lily Ledbetter offsets heritage care, more drilling, more tax cuts, more war, TPP, Jaime dimon, arne Duncan, austerity, proposals to cut social security, and more domestic spying. I read it on du.
wyldwolf
(43,867 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)What also needs to be said is that how he governs is not directly related to who he is. I think the man himself is a pretty good step to the left of most US politics. I also think he has a great urge to get things done and to actually govern. That puts him at the negotiating table as an honest broker. Often too honest of a broker. The outcome is his ideals meeting up with very conservative ideals. That leaves him signing more conservative pieces of legislation. I said more conservative, not conservative. It is who he is. I don't want to think this but I believe he thought there would be "good faith" on the other side to work with when he got into office.
pa28
(6,145 posts)Great article but by no means a comprehensive document of Obama's conservatism.
Bartlett didn't even get around to mentioning Obama's proposal to cut Social Security, his enthusiasm for job killing trade deals, his administration's moves to privatize public education or his indifference to organized labor.
Unfortunately he's been successfully branded as a socialist much like Bill Clinton was during his day. As the public feels the negative consequences of his policies years down the line; that offshored job or the fact their kid doesn't have access to a quality school will be mistakenly identified as the work of a liberal.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)joeybee12
(56,177 posts)liberal than the Democrats of today.
pampango
(24,692 posts)built infrastructure, supported civil rights, etc.
Of course, Romney's health care proposal was changed so much by the Democratic legislature in Massachusetts that he vetoed the result. The legislature then overrode his veto. ACA is much closer to what the Massachusetts legislature passed than it is to the original Heritage Foundation and Romney versions.
Qutzupalotl
(14,300 posts)Obama's a pragmatist but also an optimist, perhaps overly so. He trusted Republicans would listen to reason, and at the time did not know about the plan to obstruct. He had to give up on the public option, despite knowing it's a good idea. He did not have the votes, or rather Senator Sellout, Bill Nelson, played hardball to kill it. But Obama could have publicly shamed anyone voting against it, and did not. He should have. He had the ability to rally the public to refute the Tea Party claims. He realized many years too late that he had to resort to ridicule.