Obama Addresses Critics on ‘Centrist’ Moves

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: July 8, 2008, 12:38 pm
Obama Addresses Critics on ‘Centrist’ Moves
By Michael Powell


Senator Barack Obama at a town hall-style meeting in Powder Springs, Ga., on Tuesday. (Photo: Tami
Chappell/Reuters)

....“Look, let me talk about the broader issue, this whole notion that I am shifting to the center,” he said. “The people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.” To this, he adds, parenthetically: “And I must say some of this is my friends on the left” and those in the media. “I am someone who is no doubt progressive,” he said, adding that he believes in universal health care and that government has a strong role to play in overseeing financial institutions and cracking down on abuses in bankruptcies and the like.

Senator Obama has faced a wave of complaints from his followers in recent weeks that he is tacking hard toward the political center, and moving away from his liberal base....

So when a Republican who said he planned to vote for Mr. Obama asked about the candidate about his views on Iraq, he took the occasion to expound more broadly on his political philosophy. “I believe in a whole lot of things that make me progressive and put me squarely in the Democratic camp,” he said. But, he noted, he does not believe that the active hand of government is a replacement, say, for parental responsibility in education. “I believe in personal responsibility, I also believe in faith,” he said. “That’s not something new; I’ve been talking about that for years. So the notion that this is me trying to look” – he waves his hands around his head – “centrist is not true.”

Mr. Obama, in fact, has written and spoken in favor of a role for religious institutions in the provision of social services, and in his book “The Audacity of Hope” he appeared to endorse the death penalty for child rapists. As for gun control, Obama said he long has believed that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to bear arms. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t think we need decent controls” on guns, he said. “Those two positions are not contradictory.”...

He also spoke to the lurking danger for any candidate who stands accused of abandoning or trimming core beliefs: Voters grow uneasy about the candidate’s identity....“One of the things you find as you go through this campaign, everyone becomes so cynical about politics,” Mr. Obama said. There is an “assumption that you must be doing everything for political reasons.” Voters should understand, he said, that they rarely will find themselves in 100 percent agreement with him. “But don’t assume that’s because I’m just doing it for “political reasons, he said. “That just means we disagree,” he said....

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/obama-addresses-critics-on-centrist-moves/index.html?hp

[nomorenomore08]

1. Nothing wrong with "personal responsbility" so long as you apply it equally

to the rich and powerful. The problem with the right-wing concept of that phrase is that they place the whole burden of "responsibility" on the poor, while the ultra-wealthy can do whatever they want.

[pinto]

2. Kick.

:kick:

[jenmito]

3. Thanks for the posts. He CAN'T afford to be defined by the media and McCain as a "flip-flopper who

will say or do anything to get elected." McCain's constant message is he puts "country before self and politics" and is never accused of flip-flopping himself.

[steven88]

4. His stand on FISA is not a flip flop?

He is clearly pandering to thr Right.

[Median Democrat]

5. It Is Interesting How Folks Advocate Playing Chicken With President Bush

Who would love nothing more than a terrorist attack to take place so that he can blame the Democrats. Remember McCain's campaign advisor who openly said that a terrorist attack would help McCain. People love to throw around the term "flip flop," which suggests that there is no difference between McCain and Obama.

Do I put it past the GOP to almost invite a terrorist attack in order to blame Democrats?

[steven88]

8. You play the fear card just like a Republican

You can rationalize anything if you want to badly enough.

[rudy23]

6. HIs FISA stance isn't a move to the center, it's a move to the extreme right.

The 4th amendment is very vital to our freedom as citizens. Most if not all of the rest of the Constitution is moot without it. What is the freedom of speech, if your government is copying down everything you say? Without the 4th amendment, we are slaves and subjects, not Americans.

[MarjorieG]

7. But the print, weekend sections use RW, McC campaign talking points. Needs to be better placed.