Obama's mandate: center-left nation
North Carolina makes nine red states flipped to blue. And Texas is on track for 2012. With the axiom that the popular vote is the best metric for gauging the existence of a mandate, I look at the numbers and conclude that Obama has a clearer mandate from the people than any President in recent history.
However something that the far left will need to understand is that the mandate is for Obama, not them. The liberal leftist netroots are self-described as "progressive" - which is unabashedly NOT "center-left". The netroots played a major role in Obama's victory but in another sense, they were also irrelevant, since Obama created his online base virtually from scratch (the netroots are, however, much more directly responsible for the Congressional downballot successes). So, expectations of a "progressive" agenda are probably going to be met with disappointment, as Obama's instincts are soldily centrist. The netroots know it too - look at this by Bowers at OpenLeft where he details all the ways in which Rahm fails to live up to progressive orthodoxy. This rift between Rahm and the progressives is not easy for even sharply intelligent commentators like Larison to discern, let alone the establishment media pundits.
Clinton, in contrast to Obama, was a center-right politician, so Obama will definitely pursue a more liberal agenda, on average, but his general approach will still be coalition-minded and incremental rather than bold and ideological. We have a technocrat in the White House come January.
However something that the far left will need to understand is that the mandate is for Obama, not them. The liberal leftist netroots are self-described as "progressive" - which is unabashedly NOT "center-left". The netroots played a major role in Obama's victory but in another sense, they were also irrelevant, since Obama created his online base virtually from scratch (the netroots are, however, much more directly responsible for the Congressional downballot successes). So, expectations of a "progressive" agenda are probably going to be met with disappointment, as Obama's instincts are soldily centrist. The netroots know it too - look at this by Bowers at OpenLeft where he details all the ways in which Rahm fails to live up to progressive orthodoxy. This rift between Rahm and the progressives is not easy for even sharply intelligent commentators like Larison to discern, let alone the establishment media pundits.
Clinton, in contrast to Obama, was a center-right politician, so Obama will definitely pursue a more liberal agenda, on average, but his general approach will still be coalition-minded and incremental rather than bold and ideological. We have a technocrat in the White House come January.
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