Sane Republicans Scared S***less of Obama

Andrew Sullivan is a conservative whose ideals I admire even if I don't always agree with. Clearly against the extreme lunatic wing of the Republican party, his libertarian streak keeps him from thoroughly embracing the Democrats, who if one looks only at his biography, one could be excused for thinking are his natural affinity group. But no, Sullivan is pretty clear-headed, cold-eyed traditional conservative in the best, pre-1968 sense of that word.

So, when he attends an Obama event in DC and comes away saying the man is the Reagan of the Left, it is time to take notice.

From the content and structure of Obama's pitch to the base, it's also clear to me that whatever illusions I had about his small-c conservatism, he's a big government liberal with - for a liberal - the most attractive persona and best-developed arguments since JFK.

I fear he could do to conservatism what Reagan did to liberalism. And just as liberals deserved a shellacking in 1980, so do "conservatives" today. In the Bush era, they have shown their own contempt for their own tradition. Who can blame Obama for exploiting the big government arguments Bush has already conceded?

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Obama's speech began and continued with domestic policy. War? What war? There was one tiny, fleeting mention of the terror threat. Yes, this is the base. Yes, the base's fixation is ending the war in Iraq. Yes, you can make an argument that withdrawal there now is a boon to the terror war. But Obama didn't make that argument. And it seems to me that the two biggest obstacles Obama will have next year are residual racism and concern that he doesn't fully grasp the seriousness of the Islamist terror threat. He's been proved right on Iraq - I'm sorry to say. And that good call - and the reasons he gave for it in 2003 - will surely undermine the case against his "inexperience". Inexperienced? he'll rightly scoff. If "experience" means backing the Iraq war, I'm glad I don't have as much of it as Clinton and McCain and Giuliani. But he must tell us how we are to stay on offense in this war if he is to win over worriers like me. To listen to a stump speech five or so years after 9/11 and wait for almost half a speech until he mentions it is disconcerting. And yet, it is also bound up, surely, with his appeal. That appeal is partly to take us past the 9/11 moment, and describe a journey forward that isn't obviously into darkness.

Full disclosure. I am -- at this time -- supporting Obama. However, I am simply offering this as an excercise in how others see us. Until after February of next year, it is going to be all pandering to the base, all the time on both sides. So, I think it is useful to see how a potential swing voter, and an influential one at that sees things. That Sullivan should take such a bold stand at this time -- certainly not uncharacteristic of him-- is nonetheless pretty interesting. The Reagan of the Left. That's a pretty bold statement considering what the old fart meant to the nation and to conservatives of almost every stripe.