Has President Obama started his own political party?

[FarLeftFist]

Hedge-fund Democrat - One of a generation of neo-liberal politicians firmly committed to free-market policies. Or is he a Centrist and we have all forgotten what a Centrist president was like? Slightly confused, like I said, has he started his own political party?

[tonysam]

1. When it comes to certain issues, especially public education,

Obama is to the RIGHT of any Republican.

Pretty discouraging, if you ask me.

[Vincardog]

2. No he has only adopted the republipellant ideas to the democratic party

[uponit7771]

3. ObamaPromiseMeter (aka FACTS) says this is false

[depakid]

14. Not false at all- FACTS show contradictions

in any number of ways, at times in the president's own words.

Bottom line is that people are rightfully confused about what Obama stands for (if he stands for anything substantive at all).

[Romulox]

4. He's taken the Democrats to the right of Bill Clinton, who called himself a "New" Democrat

and spoke openly of "triangulation" (Clinton, that is.)

So Obama represents a further (and rather hard) shift to the right from a party that already had done its best to integrate much of the Republican ideology during the Clinton years.

[Tesha]

5. Last night, Mr. Tesha and I were trying to guess which Republican policy he'd endorse next.

Mr. Tesha picked "drill in ANWR" to try and get Alaskan Republicans
to vote for him.

I dunno about that, but I'm sure we'll all find out soon.

Tesha

[joeybee12]

21. Mr. Tesha is right...that "cautious" approach to drilling in the Arctic he

mentioned yesterday...cuatious my ass, leave the wild area wild.

[NashVegas]

6. Hello? Chelsea Clinton, Anyone?

Or did you forget?

[Cleita]

26. You mean hedge fund and Avenue Capital Group employee Chelsea Clinton?

That Chelsea Clinton?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/real-work-clint.html

[NashVegas]

29. That Would Be That Chelsea Clinton, Yah

[skeptical cynic]

7. No, but the Left needs to take that rocky road.

There's nothing in today's Democratic Party for what's left of the Left.

[Echo In Light]

8. We need a new name for the ONE political party ruling over the brainwashed Idiocracy

[polichick]

16. "Corporatist Party" says it pretty well. nt

[Echo In Light]

17. That's the obvious call...but surely we can come up w/something better

???

[polichick]

18. Sellout Party? Scumbag Party? Corporate Whore Party? Stop me anytime! :)

[katandmoon]

19. Empty Suit Party?

[polichick]

20. Putting all these terms together, it looks like we'll have to go with...

Republican Party.

[leftstreet]

30. I still like Central Leadership Corporation n/t

[Peregrine Took]

9. I'm just waiting for the next time I get an email or phone call from the Dems

for money. Just waiting....

[polichick]

15. I've had that call and it was delicious! :)

[Cleita]

23. Done that but I especially like sending their snail mail back to them in their

prepaid envelopes with a note that states, I don't care for their choice of candidates so there will be no money from me until they start backing some liberals in the mode of FDR or Paul Wellstone.

[polichick]

10. Rachel Maddow said last night that perhaps Obama will be the best Republican president...

...we've had in a while - sort of like Clinton, she said, when you look at policies.

[Echo In Light]

11. Exactly. Clinton was definitely a moderate repub

[polichick]

13. Yeah, and looks like Obama may be less moderate. nt

[Individualist]

12. No; he's following the one DLC started.

The republican wing of the Democratic Party.

[troubledamerican]

31. Yes

[Cleita]

22. Eisenhower was a centrist. I was a teenager when he was President.

I remember much of what he did because I was there and he kept the fifties prosperous and at peace. We had no wars except the Korean War, which Eisenhower inherited and stopped. Today, Eisenhower would be considered a Birkenstock wearing liberal, hippie, so that would put Obama further to the right than him. What I'm seeing emerge in Obama is a triangulating pragmatist. I believe he's doing what he thinks is best for the country not his bank account, which was the main aim of his predecessors. I think somewhere in his second term, when some of the hens come home to roost, he will start seeing the errors he has made in some of this and will take steps to the left to correct it. He is in the end the ultimate pragmatist.

[freddie mertz]

24. It certainly doesn't seem like the DEMOCRATIC party anymore.

Maybe just the Obama party now.

[Echo In Light]

28. Oh, you're just being "negative!"

;)

[sabrina 1]

25. He's definitely a different person than the candidate

I remember. And that's how he got votes from democrats.

Had he run on the truth about his policies, which we are now seeing, along with all the excuses for them, he never would have won.

Imagine a Democrat saying 'I'm going to open up Offshore Drilling just to spite Republicans by taking one of their issues off the table so they can't whine about it anymore? Oh, and don't worry, I'll be passing some good legislation also. It'll be a good trade-off, that's how politics works'.

Instead he said the exact opposite. He said he was going to CHANGE how politics works.

The new party is the DLC. For now, it's still part of the Dem. Party that they infiltrated a while ago but have now pretty much taken over.

There is little room in this party now for real Democrats. We can either fight them, which is hard because people keep buying into their excuses as you can see right here on this board, or start another party but call it The Real Democratic Party.

[Cleita]

27. I don't think so.

I tried to warn people here that his rousing speeches reminded me of Reagan's rousing speeches, when Reagan was running for Governor of California. They encompassed a lot of feel good rhetoric about hope for the future, but very little of the man's politics came through and it was deliberate. But I got shot down time and time again by the Obama is the Messiah wing of DU that I stayed out of the primary free-for-all for the most part. I knew eventually that the mask would come off and the real man would emerge. I'm still grateful that we don't have McCain/Palin to deal with and it's because Obama was able to pull it off. I think he will be a decent President, not the social democrat in the mode of FDR that I would like but he will be better than anything the right will have to offer.