More Inside Baseball

Michael responds to my post on the issues surrounding Keyes. He also asks if Obama is misrepresenting himself to the people of Illinois.

A couple things on the specifics–the New Democrat thing is an internal fight. You can find times when I called myself a DLC kind of guy in the archives. I wouldn’t anymore and I have a post detailing why. That said, you’ll notice I do link to the New Democratic Network which is a competing Democratic organization that seeks ‘third way solutions’ (I hate that phrase, but it’s good shorthand). Repudiating the DLC is good sport even for moderate Democrats right now.

That said, is Obama a typical liberal? In some ways yes. I’ll grant the free trade issue as the best example. I think the view is shortsighted and wrong that we need to reduce free trade. In other ways I think he breaks from the typical orthodoxy including on issues like welfare reform and emphasis on EITC and job training. I don’t see a whole lot different there than Jim Edgar’s plan which I thought was a fairly thoughtful way to approach the issue.

Is he running to the middle for the general after staking out progressive territory in the primary? Yes. Is that hypocritical? Maybe, but then every politician except Keyes is guilty of shooting for the median voter. The big question to me is whether he is changing positions, and I haven’t seen that.

The other thing to remember is that many, if not most people don’t vote on issues in the strict sense that many politically obsessive folks think they should (I’m in this category), but instead vote on how they view a candidate’s values and how close are those values to the voter’s own. In that case, framing is an important part of the process and Obama shapes the issues in question to fit the values he thinks he represents. There is nothing wrong with offering competing values in critiquing that.

One of the real problems in claiming individuals support one set of values or the other and then by extension certain types of policies, is that people have competing values and limited time. Thus, when you talk about American values, the best summation of it to me is that the American people are ideologically conservative and operationally liberal. They will rant how they hate government in their lives, but the first case of salmonella in Idaho and everyone wants to know where the federal government was (Mark Russell).

So politicians identify their policies in the values they think will most appeal to voters, but also in where those views come from in themselves. I don’t have a huge problem with that. In fact, that is what the debate should be about. Obama connects most of his positions to values and voters can choose whether to accept or reject those values and positions. No, I don’t think Obama is fooling Illinois citizens. I think he is persuading them by framing the debate. I think Alan Keyes is trying to frame the debate and failing in a spectacular manner that is one of the most amusing political spectacles I’ve ever seen.

So that went a bit longer, the second specific is that, apparently (I haven’t read it yet) in the introduction to his book Obama is clear about what he is doing. I’m okay with that as long as it was made clear to the reader.

Michael asks some good questions which seem to be coming up with some regularity in relation to how I view myself as a web log author.

First, I reject that I don’t talk about issues. With the volume it might not be apparent, but I think many of my recent post have been issue based.

Ultimately, I expect readers to understand that I am a Democrat who is somewhat of an activist and that my views come from that position. If you look at the blogs I link to as blogfathers (a dorky blog term to be sure) they are Democrats who do election analysis from the left of center. I make no bones about that. I don’t attempt to be impartial, but I do attempt to be fair. When I see Democrats acting contrary to Democratic principles as I see them–or even against good policy, I take them to task. I’m pretty sure if Rod Blagojevich had any idea this site existed, he wouldn’t like me much. Or Jack Franks. I also try and point out when Republicans are behaving in a way where coalitions can be built–I’ve issued a fair amount of praise for Tom Cross who I think is a good public servant and is ideologically closer to me than many labor Democrats. I also have sung the praises of Steve Rauschenberger even though on many, many issues I disagree. He’s an excellent public servant regardless of where he stands.

I believe all those issues have an underlying policy basis to them. While that may be lost in a particular example, I believe I do explore those issues frequently.

As to pundit versus public intellectual? I have lower standards for what my blog is. It’s ultimately a vanity site that lets me write about what I like. I do that in a flip way much of the time and it’s for fun. That people read it, surprises me quite often, but that’s fun.

Seldom will I write on bureaucratic oversight which I consider my real work and my work that has some level of seriousness to it. ArchPundit was a corny pseudonym I invented because I wanted to be pseudonomous when I first started and I thought it had the appropriate cheekiness to it. I’ve kept it on because it is a sort of device that adds to the cheekiness I hope the site has.