A Man for All Factions

„For decades, the Democratic Party was torn by civil war. On one side was the liberal left — populist in economics and dovish on foreign policy, in favor of lavish spending programs and suspicious of big business, and hostile to any idea that seemed to give an inch to the conservatives. On the other were the moderates and centrists — pro-market and pro-Wall Street, inclined to tiptoe rightward on issues like crime and welfare, and hawkish about deficits and dictators alike. In the 1980s, these two factions vied for the opportunity to lose to Ronald Reagan. In the 1990s, they fought over the direction of the Clinton administration. In the 2000s, they feuded over whether to support the Iraq war.

But in George W. Bush’s second term, peace broke out. In part, this was because Democrats came to hate Bush so intensely that every other consideration faded into insignificance. In part, it was because the two camps converged on policy: the liberal left largely accepted that it had lost Clinton-era arguments over Nafta and welfare reform, the centrists mostly admitted that they’d been wrong about Iraq, and the two sides found common ground on health care, global warming and income inequality. But peace was also possible because Barack Obama emerged to bridge the Democratic divide. The left initially wanted John Edwards as the 2008 nominee; the centrists wanted Hillary Clinton. But Obama united the party by persuading both factions that he was really on their side.

The left looked at him and saw a community organizer and Hyde Park intellectual who had been against the Iraq war before being antiwar was fashionable. Of course he was one of them! The moderates listened to him and heard a postpartisan healer who promised to work with Republicans, cut middle-class taxes and send more troops to Afghanistan. Obviously he was a centrist at heart!”