Can Obama Govern?

The Obama phenomenon seems tough to pin down. Shelby Steele does a pretty good job in his book A Bound Man. I recommend the book for a more thorough reading, but in a nutshell Steele argues that Obama is bound by the bargains he's made to get to heights he's climbed in American politics.

He's implicitly promised the black community that he will not betray their social and political agenda in return for their votes. To date he has chosen to work within the narrow confines of traditional post-60s liberal politics. Steele argues that Obama wears this mask to reassure his black support.

At the same time, to attract mainstream majority support from whites, Obama has made the bargain not to challenge whites on racist grounds. White supporters in return retain the innocence of racial fairness. By bargaining with whites, Obama raises suspicion among blacks (witness Jesse Jackson's bitter outburst). But pandering to black challengers like Jackson and Jeremiah Wright risks scaring off white supporters. This is Obama's personal bind.

My own question refers to his governing bind. As I've discussed previously, polls show American voters see themselves slightly to the right of center on political ideology. This means no big government programs to solve their personal problems. They also perceive Obama and Clinton far to the left and Bush off to the right. John McCain comes closest to how they view themselves. Let us first assume that this is not Obama's true position, that it's mostly a reflection of primary politics. This is a generous assumption given Obama's legilative record to date.

Let us also assume Obama is able, purely by force of personality and charisma, to win the presidency. Surely the Democrats will retain a large majority in the Congress and perhaps even a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. How will Obama tack to the center on policy given liberal control in both houses of Congress? After also having bound himself to the liberal demands of the minority community?

Is seems virtually impossible for Obama to govern a center-right polity from the position he's anchored himself. He will have to take his marching orders from the liberal wing of the legislature or risk getting bogged down in intraparty rivalries. Think of the first two years of the Clinton candidacy but without a grace period. Liberals will claim the country really is not center-right, but given the evidence that appears to be mostly wishful thinking.

Red vs. Blue Redux

If you've been following the discussion here at Purple Nation you know that what explains our political divide is a little bit of ideology based on a whole lot of differences rooted in urban, rural, and suburban lifestyle preferences. The real divide is exaggerated by the party platforms (as Democrats appeal to urbanites and Republicans appeal to ruralites and suburbanites), and all this gets loudly amplified by the media.

In a previous post I showed how the data on 2008 Democratic primary voting reveals the same red-blue dynamic as the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Now with the conventions behind us we can see how the parties and media are splitting into red-blue tribes and escalating the race along those lines. Obama and McCain can only ride this wave, they're helpless to contain it. I expect we'll have another red-blue election and four more years agonizing over it. I wonder if the experience will be traumatic enough to change our patterns of behavior.