Obama’s Failure to Take Public Financing, or How Obama is a Libertarian Democrat

I failed to address the topic of public financing in my last post, and I apologize for that.  It was at least important enough to acknowledge.  So, I’ll deal with it now.

Put simply: I don’t like public financing because I fear it’ll just be used as another way for politicians to game the system, but I don’t like corporate financing either.  Obama’s solution (to take donations from private individuals) actually manages to address both those issues, so I don’t have a problem with his decision.  I thought it was a bad political move, simply because it laid the foundation for the “flip flopper” label people are trying to saddle him with, but I think it will be a net boon in the long run.

I feel it would be inaccurate to say that Obama’s change of position here is part of a trend toward the political center.  One could make that argument, but I feel it would be more accurate to say that he moved more libertarian on this issue.  He’s still standing in opposition to corporate financing, but instead of getting behind a flawed government institution, he decided to do it himself, and do it better.  This isn’t something that one would see a typical Republican do (arguably, they’d be fine with corporate financing), nor is this something one would see from a typical liberal (who would get behind the institution for ideological reasons, if nothing else).  This is, however, something I’d expect from a successful Libertarian Democrat.  This is what I’d expect from a candidate who isn’t afraid to renounce a broken system, even though the ideals behind that system mirror his own.

I would argue that Barack Obama is as close to a Libertarian Democrat as we’re likely to see in a race like this for a good while.  The typical Democrat tends to overlook personal responsibility too often, and the typical Republican tries to legislate morality too often.  In contrast, Obama has consistently taken the libertarian position on those subjects, by arguing in favor of personal responsibility, and against legislating morality for others.

His Father’s Day speech about responsibility…  His support for gun rights…  His opposition to banning gay marriage…  His support of states rights regarding capital punishment…  If there is a greater narrative to be seen here, I don’t think it’s that Obama is making a strategic more to the political center.  I think the narrative is actually about Obama turning out to be more of a Libertarian Democrat (ideologically) than we originally might have thought.

Obama Is Not A Liberal Straw Man

There have been a lot of attacks against Barack Obama on the media of late. A lot of those attacks have come from the right, but a lot of them have even come from the left. The problem is that he’s being attacked for moving “away” from positions he never held in the first place.

Lets list them:

1. Death Penalty: The Supreme Court recently laid down a blanket ban on the use of capital punishment for rape cases that don’t end in the death of the victim. Obama came out against that sort of blanket ruling.

This isn’t a change of position. It can’t be, if only because he never before stated a position for this specific situation the court ruled on (as far as I know).

2. Gun Control: The Supreme Court even more recently ruled that the second amendment gives an individual the right to purchase and own a handgun. Obama came out in favor of this ruling

This isn’t a change of position. He even stated this exact thing during his primary fight with Hillary. The SCOTUS ruling essentially just restated the position Obama has preached from the very beginning.

3. Iraq: Obama stated that, after speaking with commanders on the ground in Iraq, he would “continue to refine his policies”. He is currently being attacked for changing his position away from the “rigid withdrawal date” he supposedly has.

This isn’t a change of position. He has always said that conditions on the ground would be determinative of exactly how he would go about the withdrawal. The overarching timeline has remained relatively consistent, but he has never stated that his plan wouldn’t be influenced by the facts on the ground. He was talking about tactics here, not the mission overall.

There’s really only one issue that he’s genuinely changed position on: FISA.

He’s come out in favor of the recent FISA legislation, which provides retroactive immunity to the telecommunication companies. He has stated that he doesn’t like the immunity part of the bill (and will work to remove it), but he’s willing to vote for the bill, because of the judicial overview provisions for spying in the United States.

I won’t even pretend to like the bill. I don’t. I won’t pretend Obama hasn’t changed positions on it. He has (though not as much as some claim). There’s only one thing about the bill that I’m cool with: If I’m not mistaken, this bill does not allow for domestic spying via data mining, simply because it requires a warrant for every instance of domestic spying (international communications are a different story). That’s the only reason I’m willing to let this issue slide, and I suspect that’s why Obama is given qualified marginal support of the bill (that doesn’t exactly qualify as a polar shift, but it is movement).

People on both sides of the political spectrum are accusing Obama of “moving” to the center because of all these issues. The problem is that there’s only been one move (and a relatively small one at that). Has McCain been attacked for moving to the middle during the general, because of his newfound enthusiasm for car batteries? No, because that’s just one issue and it’s not a huge move anyway.

The reason people are accusing Obama of moving to the middle is because he’s not proving to be the leftwing liberal people thought he was. Too often, people imposed their own opinions upon him, rather than listened to what he actually had to say. He became the liberal straw man for the republicans to rail against, and the liberals to deify.

After the recent Supreme Court rulings, McCain attacked Obama for wanting to put judges on the court that would take away our gun rights, and continue to vote the wrong way on capital punishment. Wait…What? That’s right. McCain accused Obama of wanting judges that actually disagree with his clearly stated positions. Why does that criticism work? Because Obama is a “liberal”, of course, and clearly doesn’t mean a word he’s saying on these issues.

This is the problem with the media, and even a lot of the American people. They don’t pay attention to what people actually say. They just listen to their own echo chamber, and base their opinions about all those outside that echo chamber on political stereotypes. Obama is not a Liberal Straw Man, and when the media treats him that way, they end up looking stupid.

The next time you hear someone say Obama has trended toward the middle since the primary, ask yourself what you feel that opinion is based on. Because, in my opinion, moving positions on one issue doesn’t make a trend.

Example of the echo chamber:

One of my best friends is a very liberal student of fine arts (she currently teaches collage English classes). She is simply one of the smartest people I know, and plans to start working on her doctorate in English some time soon. However, during the 2004 election, she and another friend got completely drunk, because they agreed to take a drink for every state that turned red that night. Being liberal arts majors, almost everyone they knew hated Bush, and assumed that no one would really elect him again. They thought Kerry would win by a landslide.

Meanwhile, anyone who paid attention to things outside the liberal echo chamber knew that there was going to be a lot of red on that political map, even if Kerry managed to win. 20 shots of anything are likely to cause serious problems, to say nothing about 31 (the actual number of states Bush won that night).

That sort of thing is happening all the time. It happened in the 2006 elections too. Those inside the liberal echo chamber thought the democrats would end the war in Iraq by pulling funding for it. However, the Democratic leadership—specifically Nancy Peloci—stated flat out that that option was off the table. Somehow, this information didn’t manage to penetrate the liberal echo chamber, and now they’re being accused of backing down…on a position they never held in the first place.

People like their stereotypes and straw men, because they’re simple. They also tend not to be representative of normal human beings.

Obama has always been a lot more moderate than either the liberal or conservative echo chambers have painted him (advocating personal responsibility among minorities, supporting gun rights, opposing mandates on healthcare, etc…). But any time he proves himself to be anything other than a Liberal Straw Man, he’s somehow “changing positions”. Frankly, I think people need to pay more attention.