Is Barack Obama a liberal?

liberal economic policies? Not sure Obama has really implemented anything along those lines.

A centrist at best.

Give him time. As the country grows more and more disgusted at the Repugs stifling of our President, those reforms and regulations will come.

QED.

Who made it a lightening rod. Bush I called it, 'The L word,' equating it with the 'F' word.

Not sure if 'shame' is the right word though. I would say the word has been tainted.

...it's good enough for me.

But I do usually describe myself as a liberal because I don't want there to be any ambiguity with those not politically well informed. Also I don't accept the fact that the Repugs have permanently scarred the term, and I want to do my part to bring it back to respectability.

The word hadn't been so triangulated in 1991 when the CPC was formed.

During the Dean campaign for the WH I noticed that his supporters were all using the term progressive. I asked repeatedly (from a policy and political perspective) what it meant. No one could ever answer. No one could ever articulate a policy position that was different or new. I was not arguing a position - I just wanted to understand the "word".

During the last primary I finally got my answer - from a teacher. I met him originally during the Dean campaign. I had asked him back then about the term progressive. He said he just liked the term better but could not give a reason.

He came up to me during the last primary and said he had been thinking through the terms for four years and admitted that the term liberal just carried too much shame and that younger citizens knew that "because it was in their textbooks". (The textbooks written by rightwing religious nuts in Texas). Oh the SHAME, the SHAME.

He thought it was time to re-own "LIBERAL" because it actually suggests real political and policy positions and progressive doesn't really mean anything. I told him I had always self-described as a liberal, never once used the term progressive, and he was singing to the choir but welcome aboard.

Its all about the SHAME. And, how can you have a real political movement if its shame based?

Signed - an old Liberal.

More proof that the "progressive" label is nebulous bullshit.

:puke:

For those who don't know, DLC detests progressives.

Hillary, Edwards and almost everyone who ran for the Presidency. In terms of intervention using the govt, Obama has shown left leanings. But he is more of a center-left type. Bayh is center right. The Rethugs are right, the teabaggers extreme right.

Anybody who read his book ("Audacity of Hope") could clearly identify him as being more of a pragmatic centrist (with left leaning tendencies that haven't quite been realized yet). The thing is that, based on what he wrote in his book and his performance in office so far, he doesn't seem tied down to a particular ideology. Actually, I suppose you might consider him to be "post-ideological" (which has certainly made for some interesting developments/alliances) but whatever he is, although he definitely seems to be to the "right" of most of us here at DU, he's NOT a "Blue Dog" (or is certainly too much to the left for most of them), and he's certainly NOT anywhere close to what passes for "Republican" nowadays.

He always came off as near Bill Clinton or slightly to the left of Bill Clinton to me all during the primaries. Hillary was slightly to the right on some foreign policy issues but they were not that different. He is in between the progressives and the blue dogs. Which means he is left of center.

Now I know he does not lean left except in speeches.

The representation of that variabble likely reflects his stated positions rather than his actual governance.

And you are probably right.

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:shrug:

I just listened to his announcing a bipartisan commission that is nearly guaranteed to further screw up the working people.

People would be up in arms and probably out in the streets if this came from a Republican president.

I'm just INCREDULOUS at what is taking place. Also, lwcon, please see this thread (if you haven't read this article yet), it really says it all:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7732854

(This is probably THE most important article I've read in a long time.)

Barack Obama can get away with a lot more than a Republican ever could.

Only Obama could bankrupt GM..

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It's just silly.

He's weak and kind of useless so far, but he is on the liberal side of the fence.

Bryant

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About 2/3 of DU is left of Obama and thinks he should move to their POV. Most of the other 1/3 are OK where he is, and a tiny fraction might think he is too left. They are just using the nebulous term "liberal" as an indication.

Lately I find myself wondering about that one more and more, as I read things like this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703315004575073321297464274.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

n/t

Obama is to the right of traditional Conservatives, certainly on Economic Policy, and Economic Justice IS the biggest Social Issue in America today. Most, if not all, Social Issues ARE a subset of Economic Injustice.

Even on The Moral Plane, it is a hard sell to consider Obama a "Liberal".


I have trouble even considering Obama, and his coalition of conservative "Blue Dogs/DLC, as "Democrats".

THIS is the "Democratic Party" I joined 42 years ago:

Check out the GOP platform from back in the day:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/16/837390/-Quick:-Who-Wrote-THIS

Hence, Obama is what is considered a center left Democrat. Politics shifted rightward. The first President I voted for was Bill Clinton so from my perspective, Obama is not a conservative. Everyone shifted to the right. Funny how the RW freaks out because he wants a slight shift to the left. OMG!

I haven't.

When FDR was asked if he was a Capitalist, he said no.

I think Obama would say yes without hesitation.

Very funny - I pissed off a RWer on a gun forum yesterday by telling him the awful truth-that Obama is considered by many Democrats to be a moderate-to-conservative, even a republican by some....I was threatened and told I had a lot of nerve to "reveal myself", and told that I should find another country in which to live. I responded that I was born here served in my country's military in time of war, and had no intent of going anywhere, and that the RW pinheads threatening violence against the left should "bring it".

The truth is, I sometimes believe Obama is what used to be called a Moderate republican...those guys think he is a communist. It is to laugh.

mark

We are forced to call it Classical Liberal in the Academia because of America's constant misuse of the word.

Obama is a classical Liberal. Those are BAD children.