There have been three distinct phases of Barack Obama’s presidency, thus far. There was the period when the President worked with the Democratic Party dominated Congress, the period when he attempted to work with the Republican Party dominated Congress, and the present period, with Obama fighting against the Republican Party dominated Congress and starting his re-election campaign. He has engaged in different tactics in each of these phases, geared to the prevailing political environment, but he has also revealed himself as being a political leader with a long-term strategy meant to change the environment, not simply adapt to it.
While most political coverage over the last three years has been focused on the tactics and the day-to-day ups and downs, serious assessment of the first term of the Obama presidency requires evaluation of the strategy, and its successes, failures and continued promise. President Obama is a principled politician with clear commitments, even if without a unifying simple ideology. He is a centrist, working to move the center to the left, trying to make the American Dream more inclusive and politics more civil, serious and participatory. He is working for a major political transformation, as I have explored carefully in my book, Reinventing Political Culture and have examined here at Deliberately Considered as well. In this post and in two future posts, I will review what we have learned about his attempt to move the political center to the left, specifically as it involves economic policies and social reform. I will review other dimensions of the Obama transformation in further posts as the Presidential election season develops.
Obama with Democrats:
Given the global crisis that greeted the new president, the economy was the initial focus of Obama and his administration. Even before he became president and then in the early days of his . . .