Centre courting

Last Modified: 03 Jul 2008
By: Felicity Spector

In a bid for those crucial swing voters across the battleground states, Obama makes a lurch for the centre.

He's courting evangelicals and promoting American values - talking patriotism and faith in the run up to the fourth of July.

He's refused to oppose a Supreme Court decision overturning DC's ban on handguns, and says he'll support legislation granting the president more domestic surveillance powers.

He's proposed to expand the death penalty, allowing states to execute child rapists.

He's extolled the virtues of free trade, decided to accept private campaign donations, offered staunch support to Israel over Iran - and he's about to announce plans to expand President Bush's programme giving more federal cash to religious charities.

No, this is not John McCain, but that liberal, progressive Democrat we thought we knew and loved: Barack Obama.

In a bid for those crucial swing voters across the battleground states, Obama has made a lurch for the centre, and it's already provoking a liberal backlash throughout the blogosphere.

12,000 people have now signed an online petition urging Obama to vote against the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; a petition based on Obama's own social networking portal, MyBo.

'Just as the campaign worked to mobilise so many supporters this weekend, it may have to re-engage supporters concerned about Obama's drift.'
Liberal magazine The Nation

MyBo was originally set up by a 24-year-old founder of Facebook, Chris Hughes, inviting users to organise their own grassroot events and network amongst themselves.

Blogs posted on the site are vetted by the campaign. But anyone can organise a local event or suggest ideas. It's the most decentralised network any presidential campaign has ever set up.

Last weekend, the official campaign team helped set up 4,000 'Unite For Change' get togethers across the country. But the petition (click here to see) is now the largest self-organised group on Obama's website.

Liberal magazine The Nation warns: "Just as the campaign worked to mobilise so many supporters this weekend, it may have to re-engage supporters concerned about Obama's drift."

Huffington Post editor Arianna Huffington also warns Obama that tacking to the centre is a losing strategy which didn't work for Gore or Kerry or, for that matter, Hillary Clinton. She fears this risks watering down a winning Obama brand.

Instead, she declares, America needs leadership: "Not swing-state, swing-voter leadership. Leadership defined by an ability to capture our imagination and a willingness to challenge us. Leadership geared to transforming the country through the audacity of hope instead of keeping it mired in the politics of fear and division."

In other words, the inspiration which galvanised so many millions of people - which won Obama the primaries - and offered a new vision of the future.

Or you could see it another way. Whatever way you look at it, there are more votes at stake in the middle than on the liberal left. It's a radical thought, but Barack Obama could just be in this contest to win.